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University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


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Regional  Oral  History  Office  University  of  California 

The  Bancroft  Library  Berkeley,  California 


Earl  Warren  Oral  History  Project 


Warren  Olney  III 
LAW  ENFORCEMENT  AND  JUDICIAL  ADMINISTRATION  IN  THE  EARL  WARREN  ERA 


With  an  Introduction  by 
Herbert  Browne 11 


Interviews  Conducted  by 

Miriam  F.  Stein  and  Amelia  R.  Fry 

1970  through  1977 


Copyright  (c)  1981  by  the  Regents  of  the  University  of  California 


This  manuscript  is  open  for  research  purposes. 
All  literary  rights  in  the  manuscript,  including  the 
right  to  publish,  are  reserved  to  The  Bancroft  Library 
of  the  University  of  California  at  Berkeley.   No  part 
of  the  manuscript  may  be  quoted  for  publication  without 
the  written  permission  of  the  Director  of  The  Bancroft 
Library  of  the  University  of  California  at  Berkeley. 

Requests  for  permission  to  quote  for  publication 
should  be  addressed  to  the  Regional  Oral  History  Office, 
486  Library,  and  should  include  identification  of  the 
specific  passages  to  be  quoted,  anticipated  use  of  the 
passages,  and  identification  of  the  user. 

It  is  recommended  that  the  oral  history  be  cited 
as  follows : 

Warren  Olney  III,  "Law  Enforcement  and  Judicial 
Administration  in  the  Earl  Warren  Era,"  an  oral 
history  conducted  1970  through  1977  by  Miriam  F. 
Stein  and  Amelia  R.  Fry,  Regional  Oral  History 
Office,  The  Bancroft  Library,  University  of 
California,  Berkeley,  1981. 


Copy  No. 


WARREN  OLNEY   III 
ca.    1955 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS  —  Warren  Olney  III 


PREFACE  i 

INTRODUCTION  by  Herbert  Browne 11  ix 

IN  MEMORY  OF  WARREN  OLNEY  III  by  Scott  Elder  xL 

INTERVIEW  HISTORY  xvi 

I .   GRANDPARENTS  1 

II.   FATHER:   WARREN  OLNEY,  JR.  4 

Background  4 

Representing  the  University  of  California  Board  of  Regents  8 

Western  Pacific  Railroad  11 

Political  Matters  15 

Spring  Valley  Water  Company  18 

Associate  Justice,  California  Supreme  Court  24 

Service  on  the  Draft  Board  26 
Antitrust  Action 

U.S.  Supreme  Court  Advisory  Committee  on  Rules  of  Civil  Procedure   30 

Water  Resources  35 

Views  on  "Court  Packing"  39 

Hunting  and  Packing  40 

III.   WARREN  OLNEY  III:   BACKGROUND  45 

Childhood  45 

Schooling  56 

Boy  Scouting  59 

Outdoor  Adventures  with  a  Friend  62 

Retribution:   Two  Episodes  with  the  Berkeley  Police  63 
Pomona  College 
University  of  California 

IV.   CONTRA  COSTA  COUNTY  DISTRICT  ATTORNEY'S  OFFICE                     79 
Joining  the  Office 

In  Charge  of  the  Richmond  Office  84 

V.   IN  PRIVATE  PRACTICE  90 


VI.   ALAMEDA  COUNTY  DISTRICT  ATTORNEY'S  OFFICE 
Joining  the  Staff 
Organization  and  Administration 
Eliminating  Delays  in  Criminal  Prosecutions 
Investigative  Staff 
Deputies  on  Call 
A  Complex  Fraud  Case 
Standards  of  Evidence 
Coordination  of  Law  Enforcement 
Reflections  on  Earl  Warren's  Career 
The  Cos den  Case 
The  Del  Masso  Case 
Deputy  Charles  Wehr  and  the  Point  Lobos  Shipboard  Murder  Case 

VII.   THE  CALIFORNIA  ATTORNEY  GENERAL'S  OFFICE:   GENERAL 
The  1934  Reforms 
Putting  the  Reforms  to  Work 
Office  Personnel 

VIII.   THE  ATTORNEY  GENERAL'S  OFFICE  AND  THE  GAMBLING  SHIPS 
Tony  Cornero's  Early  Career 
Tracking  Cornero's  Backers 
Investigating  the  Ships 
Anchorage  and  Telephone  Service 
A  Brief  History  of  the  Gambling  Ships 
The  Cornero-Adams  Arrest  and  the  Adams  Appeal 
Legal  Theories 

Planning  for  Summary  Abatement 
D  Day 

Results  of  the  Litigation 
The  Outcome  for  Tony  Cornero 
The  Nootka  Sound  Convention 

The  California  Supreme  Court  and  the  S.S.  Rex 
An  Attempt  to  Revive  the  Gambling  Ships 

IX.  WARTIME  EXPERIENCE  IN  THE  OFFICES  OF  THE  DISTRICT  ATTORNEY 
OF  ALAMEDA  COUNTY  AND  THE  ATTORNEY  GENERAL  OF  CALIFORNIA  - 
EXCLUSION  OF  THE  JAPANESE  FROM  CALIFORNIA 

X.   THE  ATTORNEY  GENERAL'S  OFFICE  AND  THE  FRIENDS  OF  PROGRESS 

XI.   THE  WIRE  SERVICES  CASES 
State  Border  Disputes 
Prosecuting  the  Wire  Services 


XII.   THE  CALIFORNIA  CRIME  STUDY  COMMISSION  ON  ORGANIZED  CRIME  264 

Setting  Up  the  Crime  Commission  264 

Administrative  Machinery  264 

Artie  Samish  and  the  Tom  Keene  Murder  268 

The  Attorney  General's  Office  and  Organized  Crime  273 

The  Crime  Commission  at  Work  276 

Gathering  Information  277 

Attorney  General  Howser  281 

Drew  Pearson  and  Ralph  Allen  285 

The  George  Rochester  Suit  288 

Federal  Intervention  292 

Cooperation  with  Other  Crime  Commissions  296 

An  Assessment  of  the  Crime  Commission's  Work  299 
Relations  with  Commission  Members  and  Preparation  of  Reports   300 

The  Commission  Staff  303 

Fred  Grange  and  the  Mendocino  Trial  305 

A  Postscript  on  Two  Underworld  Figures  313 

XIII.   THE  DEPARTMENT  OF  JUSTICE  315 

Teaching  at  Boalt  Hall  315 

Coming  to  Washington  317 

Organization  of  the  Department  332 

The  Congressman  Bramblett  Case  334 

Personnel  336 

The  Bramblett  Case  Concluded  338 

The  Investigation  of  Tom  Clark  340 

Internal  Security  Work  341 

Budget  Problems  341 

The  Rosenberg  Case  347 

The  Joseph  Weinberg  Case  350 

The  Owen  Lattimore  Case  357 

The  Jencks  Case  363 

The  Harry  Dexter  White  Affair  371 

Senator  Joseph  McCarthy  378 

The  Smith  Act  Prosecutions  381 

A  Question  of  Federal  Jurisdiction  383 

The  Nomination  of  Earl  Warren  to  the  Supreme  Court  386 

Cleaning  Up  the  Mess  in  Washington  393 

Civil  Rights  407 

Desegregating  Washington,  D.C.  407 

The  Civil  Rights  Bill  of  1956-1957  412 

Voting  Rights  421 

Little  Rock  426 

Kidnaping  Cases:   The  FBI  and  the  Justice  Department  430 

Shipping  Cases  438 

The  Prosecution  of  Artie  Samish  441 

Life  in  Washington,  D.C.  443 


XIV.   DIRECTOR,  ADMINISTRATIVE  OFFICE  OF  THE  COURTS 
Staff 

Reform  of  Rules  of  Procedure  in  the  Federal  Courts 
The  Problem  of  Backlog  of  Cases  and  Some  Solutions 

The  Philadelphia  Experience 

The  Brooklyn  Project 
The  Court  Calendar  Conundrum 
Problem  Judges 
Protracted  Cases:   The  Problem  and  a  Solution 


452 
452 
455 
457 
457 
462 
464 
466 
470 


Statistical  Matters:   A  Case  Study  of  the  Federal  Probation  System  475 
The  Budget  and  Congressional  Relations  478 

The  Federal  Judicial  Center  483 


INTERVIEW  GUIDE 
APPENDIX  A 

APPENDIX  B 


APPENDIX  C 


APPENDIX  D 


APPENDIX  E 


APPENDIX  F 


APPENDIX  G 


APPENDIX  H 


INDEX 


Easton,  Ethel  Olney,  "Sierra  Club  Beginnings," 
Sierra  Club  Bulletin,  December,  1969,  pp.  13-15. 

Letter  from  Ronald  Beattie,  chief  of  Bureau  of 
Statistics,  California  Department  of  Justice,  to 
Warren  Olney  III,  dated  November  9,  1970,  regard 
ing  1931-1932  statistics  on  time  taken  to  dispose 
of  superior  court  cases  in  Alameda,  San  Francisco, 
and  Los  Angeles  Counties . 

"Getting  Action  on  Crime,"  Berkeley  Daily  Gazette 
editorial,  September  3,  1929. 

"Government  and  Politics,"  Fortnight,  The  News 
Magazine  of  California,  November  5,  1948,  pp.  12-13. 

Article  on  President  Dwight  D.  Eisenhower's  appoint 
ment  of  Warren  Olney  III  as  Assistant  United  States 
Attorney  General  and  head  of  the  Justice  Department's 
Criminal  Division,  San  Francisco  Examiner,  January  5, 
1953. 

Shalett,  Sidney,  "How  To  Be  A  Crime  Buster,"  Saturday 
Evening  Post,  March  19,  1955,  p.  25. 

Memo  to  Judge  Alfred  Murrah  from  Mr.  Eldridge  outlin 
ing  operational  procedure  of  the  Speedy  Trial  Project. 

Doctor  of  Laws  Honoris  Causa,  degree  awarded  to  Warren 
Olney  III  by  Mills  College,  June  6,  1954. 


488 


489 


492 
495 
496 


499 
501 
507 

509 
510 


PREFACE 


The  Earl  Warren  Oral  History  Project,  a  special  project  of  the  Regional 
Oral  History  Office,  was  inaugurated  in  1969  to  produce  tape-recorded  interviews 
with  persons  prominent  in  the  arenas  of  politics,  governmental  administration, 
and  criminal  Justice  during  the  Warren  Era  in  California.  Focusing  on  the  years 
1925-1953,  the  interviews  were  designed  not  only  to  document  the  life  of  Chief 
Justice  Warren  "but  to  gain  new  information  on  the  social  and  political  changes 
of  a  state  in  the  throes  of  a  depression,  then  a  war,  then  a  postwar  "boom. 

An  effort  was  made  to  document  the  most  significant  events  and  trends  by 
interviews  with  key  participants  who  spoke  from  diverse  vantage  points.  Most 
were  queried  on  the  one  or  two  topics  in  which  they  were  primarily  involved;  a 
few  interviewees  with  special  continuity  and  "breadth  of  experience  were  asked  to 
discuss  a  multiplicity  of  subjects.  While  the  cut-off  date  of  the  period  studied 
was  October  1953,  Earl  Warren's  departure  for  the  United  States  Supreme  Court, 
there  was  no  attempt  to  end  an  interview  perfunctorily  when  the  narrator's  account- 
had  to  go  beyond  that  date  in  order  to  complete  the  topic. 

The  interviews  have  stimulated  the  deposit  of  Warreniana  in  the  form  of 
papers  from  friends,  aides,  and  the  opposition;  government  documents;  old  movie 
newsreels;  video  tapes;  and  photographs.  This  Earl  Warren  collection  is  being 
added  to  The  Bancroft  Library's  extensive  holdings  on  twentieth  century  California 
politics  and  history. 

The  project  has  been  financed  by  four  outright  grants  from  the  National 
Endowment  for  the  Humanities  ,  a  one  year  grant  from  the  California  State  Legis 
lature  through  the  California  Heritage  Preservation  Commission, and  by  gifts  from 
local  donors  which  were  matched  by  the  Endowment.  Contributors  include  the  former 
law  clerks  of  Chief  Justice  Earl  Warren,  the  Cortez  Society,  many  long-time  sup 
porters  of  "the  Chief,"  and  friends  and  colleagues  of  some  of  the  major  memoirists 
in  the  project.  The  Roscoe  and  Margaret  Oakes  Foundation  and  the  San  Francisco 
Foundation  have  Jointly  sponsored  the  Northern  California  Negro  Political  History 
Series,  a  unit  of  the  Earl  Warren  Project. 

Particular  thanks  are  due  the  Friends  of  The  Bancroft  Library  who  were 
instrumental  in  raising  local  funds  for  matching,  who  served  as  custodian  for  all 
such  funds,  and  who  then  supplemented  from  their  own  treasury  all  local  contribu 
tions  on  a  one-dollar-for-every-three  dollars  basis. 

The  Regional  Oral  History  Office  was  established  to  tape  record  autobiogra 
phical  interviews  with  persons  prominent  in  the  history  of  California  and  the 
West.  The  Office  is  under  the  administrative  supervision  of  James  D.  Hart, 
Director  of  The  Bancroft  Library. 

Amelia  R.  Fry,  Director 

Earl  Warren  Oral  History  Project 


Willa  K.  Baum,  Department  Head 
Regional  Oral  History  Office 


30  June  1976 

Regional  Oral  History  Office 

U86  The  Bancroft  Library 

University  of  California  at  Berkeley 


ii 


EARL  WARREN  ORAL  HISTORY  PROJECT 


Principal  Investigators 

Lawrence  A.  Harper 
Ira  M.  Heyman 
Arthur  H.  Sherry 


Advisory  Council 

Barbara  Nachtrieb  Armstrong* 

Walton  E.  Bean* 

Richard  M.  Buxbaum 

William  R.  Dennes 

Joseph  P.  Harris 

James  D.  Hart 

John  D.  Hicks* 

William  J.  Hill 

Robert  Kenny* 

Adrian  A.  Kragen 

Thomas  Kuchel 

Eugene  C.  Lee 

Mary  Ellen  Leary 


James  R.  Leiby 
Helen  McGregor 
Dean  E.  McHenry 
Sheldon  H.  Mess ing er 
Frank  C.  Newman 
Allan  Nevins* 
Warren  Olney  III* 
Bruce  Poyer 
Sho  Sato 

Mortimer  Schwartz 
Merrell  F.  Small 
John  D.  Weaver 


Project  Interviewers 

Miriam  Feingold 
Amelia  R.  Fry 
Joyce  A.  Henderson 
Rosemary  Levenson 
Gabrielle  Morris 


Special  Interviewers 

Orville  Armstrong 
Willa  K.  Baum 
Malca  Chall 
June  Hogan 
Frank  Jones 
Alice  G.  King 
Elizabeth  Kirby 
Harriet  Nathan 
Suzanne  Riess 
Ruth  Teiser 


*Deceased  during  the  term  of  the  project. 


iii 


EARL  WARREN  ORAL  HISTORY  PROJECT 
(California,  1926-1953) 

Single  Interview  Volumes 

Amerson,  A.  Wayne,  Northern  California  and  Its  Challenges  to  a  Negro  in  the 
Mid-1 900s,  with  an  introduction  by  Henry  Ziesenhenne.  1974,  103  p. 

Breed,  Arthur,  Jr.,  Alameda  County  and  the  California  Legislature:  193S-19S8. 
1977,  65  p. 

Carter,  Oliver  J.,  A  Leader  in  the  California  Senate  and  the  Democratic  Party , 
1940-1950.   1979,  200  p. 

Carty,  Edwin  L. ,  Bunting,  Polities,  and  the  Fish  and  Game  Commission.  1975,  104  p. 

Chatters,  Ford,  View  from  the  Central  Valley:  The  California  Legislature,  Water, 
'Politics,  and  The  State  Personnel  Board,  with  an  introduction  by  Harold 
Schutt.   1976,  197  p. 

Dellums,  C.  L. ,  International  President  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Sleeping  Car 
Porters  and  Civil  Rights  Leader,  with  an  introduction  by  Tarea  Pittman. 
1973,  159  p. 

Paries,  Mclntyre,  California  Republicans,  2934-1953.   1973,  155  p. 

Graves,  Richard,  Theoretician,  Advocate,  and  Candidate  in  California  State 
Government.   1973,  219  p. 

Huntington,  Emily  H.,  A  Career  in  Consumer  Economics  and  Social  Insurance, 
with  an  introduction  by  Charles  A.  Gulick.  1971,  111  p. 

Jahnsen,  Oscar  J. ,  Enforcing  the  Law  Against  Gambling,  Bootlegging,  Graft, 
Fraud,  and  Subversion,  1922-1942.   1976,  212  p. 

Johnson,  Gardiner.  In  process. 

MacGregor,  Helen  S.,  A  Career  in  Public  Service  with  Earl  Warren,  with  an 
introduction  by  Earl  Warren.  1973,  249  p. 

McGee,  Richard  Allen,  Participant  in  the  Evolution  of  American  Corrections: 
1931-1973.   1976,  223  p. 

McLaughlin,  Donald,  Careers  in  Mining  Geology  and  Management,  University 

Governance  and  Teaching,  with  an  introduction  by  Charles  Meyer.  1975,  318  p. 


iv 


Olney,  Warren  III.  Law  Enforcement  and  Judicial  Administration  in  the  Earl 
Warren  Era.  1981,  523  p. 

Patterson,  Edgar  James,  Governor's  Mansion  Aide  to  "Prison  Counselor,  with  an 
introduction  by  Merrell  F.  Small.  1975,  79  p. 

Pittman,  Tarea,  NAACP  Official  and  Civil  Rights  Worker ,  with  an  introduction 
by  C.  L.  Dellums.  1974,  159  p. 

Powers,  Robert  B.,  Tau  Enforcement ,  Race  Relations:  2930-2960,  with  an  intro 
duction  by  Robert  W.  Kenny.  1971,  180  p. 

Rumford,  William  Byron,  Legislator  for  Fair  Employment,  Fair  Housing,  and 
Public  Health,  with  an  introduction  by  A.  Wayne  Amerson.  1973,  152  p. 

Sherry,  Arthur  H. ,  The  Alameda  County  District  Attorney's  Office  and  the  Cali 
fornia  Crime  Commission.  1976,  146  p. 

Small,  Merrell  F.,  The  Office  of  the  Governor  Under  Earl  Warren.   1972,  227  p. 
Sweigert,  William.  Democrat,  Friend,  and  Advisor  to  Earl  Warren.  In  process. 

Taylor,  Paul  Schuster,  CALIFORNIA  SOCIAL  SCIENTIST,  Three  Volumes. 

Volume  I:  Education,  Field  Research,  and  Family,  with  an  introduction  by 
Lawrence  I.  Hewes.  1973,  342  p. 

Volume  II  and  III:  California  Water  and  Agricultural  Labor,  with  intro 
ductions  by  Paul  W.  Gates  and  George  M.  Foster.  1975,  519  p. 

Warren,  Earl,  Conversations  with  Earl  Warren  on  California  Government.   In  process 

Wollenberg,  Albert,  To  Do  the  Job  Well:  A  Life  in  Legislative,  Judicial,  and 
Community  Service.   1981,  396  p. 

Multi- Interview  Volumes 

PERSPECTIVES  ON  TEE  ALAMEDA  COUNT?  DISTRICT  ATTORNEJ 'S  OFFICE,  with  an  intro 
duction  by  Arthur  H.  Sherry.  Three  volumes. 
Volume  I:  1972,  137  p. 

Mullins,  John  F.,  Sew  Earl  Warren  Became  District  Attorney. 

Balaban,  Edith,  Reminiscences  about  Nathan  Barry  Miller,  Deputy  District 

Attorney,  Alameda  County. 
Hamlin,  Judge  Oliver  D. ,  Reminiscences  about  the  Alameda  County  District 

Attorney's  Office  in  the  1920s  and  30s. 
Shaw,  Mary,  Perspectives  of  a  Newspaperwoman. 
Shea,  Willard  W. ,  Recollections  of  Alameda  County's  First  Public  Defender. 

Volume  II:  1973,  322  p. 

Chamberlain,  Richard  H. ,  Reminiscences  about  the  Alameda  County  District 

Attorney's  Office. 
Jester,  Lloyd,  Reminiscences  of  an  Inspector  in  the  District  Attorney's 

Office. 


Volume  II  (Continued) 

Heinrichs,  Beverly,  Reminiscences  of  a  Secretary  in  the  District 

Attorney's  Office. 
Severin,  Clarence  E. ,  Chief  Clerk  in  the  Alameda  County  District 

Attorney's  Office 

Spence,  Homer  R. ,  Attorney ,  Legislator t  and  Judge. 
Daly,  E.  A.,  Alameda  County  Political  Leader  and  Journalist. 
Bruce,  John,  A  Reporter  Remembers  Earl  Warren. 

Volume  III:  1974,  165  p. 

Coakley,  J.  Frank,  A  Career  in  the  Alameda  County  District  Attorney's 

Office. 

Hederman,  Albert  E.,  Jr.,  From  Office  Boy  to  Assistant  District  Attorney. 
Jensen,  Lowell,  Reflections  of  the  Alameda  County  District  Attorney. 
Oakley,  James  H. ,  Early  Life  of  a  Warren  Assistant. 

EARL  WARREN'S  BAKERSFIELD.  1971,  185  p. 

Ashe,  Maryann,  and  Ruth  Smith  Henley,  Earl  Warren's  Bakersfield. 

Gavins,  Omar,  Coming  of  Age  in  Bakers field. 

Vaughan,  Francis,  Schooldays  in  Bakerefield. 

Kreiser,  Ralph,  A  Reporter  Recollects  the  Warren  Case. 

Manford,  Martin  and  Ernest  McMillan,  On  Methias  Warren. 

BEE_  PERSPECTIVES  OF  TEE  WARREN  ERA.  1976,  186  p. 
Rodda,  Richard,  From  the  Capitol  Press  Room. 
Phillips,  Herbert  L. ,  Perspective  of  a  Political  Reporter. 
Jones,  Walter  P.,  An  Editor's  Long  Friendship  with  Earl  Warren. 

EARL  WARREN'S  CAMPAIGNS.   Three  Volumes. 
Volume  I:  1976,  324  p. 

Barnes,  Stanley  N. ,  Experiences  in  Grass  Roots  Organization. 
Cunningham,  Thomas  J.,  Southern  California  Campaign  Chairman  for 

Earl  Warren,  1946. 

Draper,  Murray,  Warren's  1946  Campaign  in  Northern  California. 
Mailliard,  William  S.,  Earl  Warren  in  the  Governor's  Office. 
Mull,  Archibald  M. ,  Jr.,  Warren  Fund-Raiser;  Bar  Association  Leader. 
McNitt,  Rollin  Lee,  A  Democrat  for  Warren. 

Volume  II:  1977,  341  p. 

Knowland,  William  F. ,  California  Republican  Politics  in  the  1930s. 
Feigenbaum,  B.  Joseph,  Legislator,  Partner  of  Jesse  Steinhart,  Aide  to 

Earl  Warren. 

Ladar,  Samuel,  Jesse  Steinhart,  Race  Relations,  and  Earl  Warren. 
Steinhart,  John,  Jesse  and  Amy  Steinhart. 
Hansen,  Victor,  West  Coast  Defense  During  World  War  IT;  The  California 

Gubernatorial  Campaign  of  19 SO. 
Mellon,  Thomas  J. ,  Republican  Campaigns  of  1950  and  19 52. 

Volume  III:  1978,  242  p. 

McCornac,  Keith,  The  Conservative  Republicans  of  1952. 


VI 


CALIFORNIA  DEMOCRATS  HI  THE  EARL  WARREN  ERA.   1976,  278  p. 
Clifton,  Florence,  California  Democrats,  2934-19SO. 

Clifton,  Robert,  The  Democratic  Party,  Culbert  L.  Olson,  and  the  Legislature. 
Kent,  Roger,  A  Democratic  Leader  Looks  at  the  Warren  Era. 
Outland,  George,  James  Roosevelt's  Primary  Campaign,  2950. 
Post,  Langdon,  James  Roosevelt's  Northern  California  Campaign,  2950. 
Roosevelt,  James,  Campaigning  for  Governor  Against  Earl  Warren,  2950. 

TEE  GOVERNOR'S  FAMILI.  1980,  209  p. 

Warren,  Earl,  Jr.,  California  Politics. 

Warren,  James,  Recollections  of  the  Eldest  Warren  Son. 

Warren,  Nina  (Honeybear) [Mrs .  Stuart  Brien] ,  Growing  Up  in  the  Warren  Family. 

Warren,  Robert,  Playing,  Bunting,  Talking. 

EARL  WARREN:  FELLOW  CONSTITUTIONAL  OFFICERS.  1979,  244  p. 
Brown,  Edmund  G.,  ST.,  The  Governor's  Lawyer. 
Kenney,  Robert,  Attorney  General  for  California  and  the  2946  Gubernatorial 

Campaign. 
Kuchel,  Thomas  H. ,  California  State  Controller. 

CALIFORNIA  STATE  FINANCE  IN  THE  1940s,  with  an  introduction  by  Stanley  Scott. 
1974,  406  p. 

Links,  Fred,  An  Overview  of  the  Department  of  Finance. 

Groff ,  Ellis,  Some  Details  of  Public  Revenue  and  Expenditure  in  the  1940s. 

Killion,  George,  Observations  an  Culbert  Olson,  Earl  Warren,  and  Money 
Matters  in  Public  Affairs. 

Post,  A.  Alan,  Watchdog  on  State  Spending. 

Leake,  Paul,  Statement  on  the  Board  of  Equalization. 

THE  WARRENS:  FOUR  PERSONAL  VIEWS.   1976,  137  p. 

Albright,  Horace,  Earl  Warren  Job  Hunting  at  the  Legislature. 
Stone,  Irving  and  Jean,  Earl  Warren's  Friend  and  Biographer. 
Henderson,  Betty  Foot,  Secretary  to  Two  Warrens. 
Swig,  Benjamin  H.,  Shared  Social  Concerns. 

EARL  WARREN  AND  HEALTH  INSURANCE:  2943-2949.   1971,  216  p. 

Lee,  Russel  VanArsdale,  M.D.,  Pioneering  in  Prepaid  Group  Medicine. 
Salsman,  Byrl  R. ,  Shepherding  Health  Insurance  Bills  Through  the  California 

Legislature. 

Claycombe,  Gordon,  The  Making  of  a  Legislative  Committee  Study. 
Cline,  John  W. ,  M.O.,  California  Medical  Association  Crusade  Against 

Compulsory  State  Health  Insurance. 

HUNTING  AND  FISHING  WITH  EARL  WARREN.   1976,  186  p. 

Cavanaugh,  Bartley,  A  Mutual  Interest  in  Government,  Politics,  and  Sports. 
Lynn,  Wallace,  Hunting  and  Baseball  Companion. 


vii 


TEE  JAPANESE-AMERICAN  RELOCATION  REVIEWED,  with  an  Introduction  by  Mike  M. 
Masaoka.   Two  Volumes. 

Volume  I:  Decision  and  Exodus.   1976,  196  p. 
Rowe,  James,  The  Japanese  Evacuation  Decision. 
Heckendorf,  Percy  C.,  Planning  for  the  Japanese  Evacuation:  Reforming 

Regulatory  Agency  Procedures. 

Clark,  Tom,  Comments  an  the  Japanese- American  Relocation. 
Ennis,  Edward,  A  Justice  Department  Attorney  Garments  on  the  Japanese- 
American  Relocation. 

Wenig,  Herbert,  The  California  Attorney  General's  Office,  the  Judge 
Advocate  General  Corps,  and  Japanese-American  Relocation. 

Volume  II:  The  Interment.  1974,  267  p. 

Cozzens,  Robert,  Assistant  National  Director  of  the  War  Relocation  Authority. 
Myer,  Dillon  S.,  War  Relocation  Authority:  The  Director's  Account. 
Kingman,  Ruth  W. ,  The  Fair  Play  Contnittee  and  Citizen  Participation. 
Hibi,  Hisako,  painting  of  Tanforan  and  Topaz  camps. 

EARL  WARREN:  TEE  CHIEF  JUSTICESHIP.   1977,  245  p. 

Brownell,  Herbert,  Earl  Warren's  Appointment  to  the  Supreme  Court. 
Finkelstein,  Louis,  Earl  Warren's  Inquiry  into  Talmudia  Lou. 
Hagerty,  James,  Campaigns  Revisited:  Earl  Warren,  Thomas  Deuey,  and 

Duight  Eisenhower. 

Oliver,  William,  Inside  the  Warren  Court,  29S3-19S4. 
Richman,  Martin  F. ,  Law  Clerk  for  Chief  Justice  Warren,  1956-2957. 
Stassen,  Harold,  Eisenhower,  the  1952  Republican  Convention,  and  Earl  Warren. 

LABOR  LOOKS  AT  EARL  WARREN.   1970,  145  p. 

Bulcke,  Germain,  A  Longshoreman's  Observations. 
Chaudet,  Joseph  W. ,  A  Printer's  View. 
Heide,  Paul,  A  Warehouseman's  Reminiscences. 
Simonds,  U.  S.,  A  Carpenter's  Comments. 
Vernon,  Ernest  H. ,  A  Machinist's  Recollection. 

LABOR  LEADERS  VIEW  THE  WARREN  ERA,  with  an  introduction  by  George  W.  Johns. 
1976,  126  p. 

Ash,  Robert  S.,  Alameda  County  Labor  Council  During  the  Warren  lears. 

Haggerty,  Cornelius  J.,  Labor,  Los  Angeles,  and  the  Legislature. 

EARL  WARREN  AND  THE  STATE  DEPARTMENT  OF  MENTAL  H7GIENE.   1973,  223  p. 

Tallman,  Frank  F. ,  M.D.,  Dynamics  of  Change  in  State  Mental  Institutions. 
Hume,  Portia  Bell,  M.D.,  Mother  of  Cormunity  Mental  Health  Services. 

RICHARD  M.  NIXON  IN  THE  WARREN  ERA.   1980,  303  p. 

Jorgensen,  Frank  E. ,  The  Organization  of  Richard  Nixon's  Congressional 

Campaigns,  1946-1952. 

Day,  Roy  0.,  Campaigning  with  Richard  Nixon,  1946-1952. 
Dinkelspiel,  John  Walton,  Recollections  of  Richard  Nixon's  1950  Senatorial 

Campaign  in  Northern  California. 

Adams,  Earl,  Financing  Richard  Nixon's  Campaigns  From  1946  to  1960. 
Crocker,  Roy  P.,  Gathering  Southern  California  Support  for  Richard  Nixon 

in  the  1950  Senate  Race. 


Vlll 


THE  GOVERNOR  AND  THE  PUBLIC,  THE  "PRESS,  AND  THE  LEGISLATURE.   1973,  177  p. 

Gallagher,  Marguerite,  Administrative  Procedures  in  Earl  Warren's  Office, 

2938-53. 
Scoggins,  Verne,  Observations  on  California  Affairs  by  Governor  Earl  Warren's 

Press  Secretary. 
Vasey,  Beach,  Governor  Warren  and  the  Legislature. 

EARL  WARREN  AND  THE  STATE  DEPARTMENT  OF  PUBLIC  HEALTH,  with  an  introduction  by 
E.  S.  Rogers.  1973,  409  p. 

Merrill,  Malcolm  H. ,  M.D.,  M.P.H.,  A  Director  Reminisces. 

Stead,  Frank  M. ,  Environmental  Pollution  Control. 

Ongerth,  Henry,  Recollections  of  the  Bureau  of  Sanitary  Engineering. 

Zimmerman,  Kent  A.,  M.D.,  Mental  Health  Concepts. 

Arnstein,  Lawrence,  Public  Health  Advocates  and  Issues. 

THE  SHIPBOARD  MURDER  CASE:  LABOR,  RADICALISM,  AND  EARL  WARREN,  1936-1941. 
1976,  276  p. 

Ramsay,  Ernest  G.,  Reminiscences  of  a  Defendant  in  the  Shipboard  Murder  Case. 

Grossman,  Aubrey,  A  Defense  Attorney  Assesses  the  King,  Ramsay,  Conner  Case. 

Harris,  Myron,  A  Defense  Attorney  Reminisces. 

Resner,  Herbert,  The  Recollections  of  the  Attorney  for  Frank  Conner. 

Johnson,  Miriam  Dinkin,  The  King-Ramsay-Conner  Defense  Committee:  1938-1941. 

Odeen,  Peter,  Captain  of  the  Point  Lobos. 

EARL  WARREN  AS  EXECUTIVE:  SOCIAL  WELFARE  AND  STATE  PARKS.   1977,  147  p. 

Drury,  Newton,  A  Conservative  Comments  on  Earl  Warren  and  Harold  lakes. 
Schottland,  Charles  I.,  State  Director  of  Social  Welfare,  1950-54. 

EARL  WARREN:  VIEWS  AND  EPISODES.   1976,  250  p. 

Hale,  Mildred,  Schools,  the  PTA,  and  the  State  Board  of  Education. 
Kerr,  Clark,  University  of  California  Crises:  Loyalty  Oath  and  the  Free 

Speech  Movement. 
Kragen,  Adrian,  State  and  Industry  Interests  in  Tasation,  and  Observations 

of  Earl  Warren. 

McConnell,  Geraldine,  Governor  Warren,  the  Knoulands,  and  Columbia  State  Park. 
McWilliams,  Carey,  California's  Olson-Warren  Era:  Migrants  and  Social  Welfare 
Siems,  Edward  H. ,  Recollections  of  Masonic  Brother  Earl  Warren. 

EARL  WARREN  AND  THE  IOUTH  AUTHORITI,  with  an  introduction  by  Allen  F.  Breed. 
1972,  279  p. 

Holton,  Karl,  Development  of  Juvenile  Correctional  Practices. 

Scudder,  Kenyon  J.,  Beginnings  of  Therapeutic  Correctional  Facilities. 

Stark,  Heman  G.,  Juvenile  Correctional  Services  and  the  Community. 

Beam,  Kenneth  S.,  Clergyman  and  Community  Coordinator. 


ix 


INTRODUCTION  by  Herbert  Brownell 


Warren  Olney's  memoirs  in  the  Earl  Warren  Oral  History  Project  add 
significantly  to  the  story  of  the  life  and  times  of  his  good  friend,  the 
chief  justice.   But  they  reveal,  too,  the  highlights  of  Warren  Olney's  own 
professional  and  public  activities  that  will  not  only  be  useful  to  historians 
and  legal  scholars  but  also  will  illuminate  his  own  career.  His  career  was 
that  of  an  outstanding  lawyer  and  teacher  and  of  a  public  servant  of  great 
integrity  who  served  the  nation  and  his  state  of  California  with  distinction. 
He  was  a  man  of  deep  convictions  and  high  standards,  with  a  capacity  for 
unselfish  friendship  and  service  to  his  community. 

I  became  acquainted  with  Warren  Olney  shortly  after  the  election  of 
President  Dwight  D.  Eisenhower.   The  president-elect  requested  me  to  recommend 
someone  to  head  the  criminal  division  of  the  Department  of  Justice  and, 
accordingly,  I  undertook  a  nationwide  survey  of  attorneys  who  had  demonstrated 
their  ability  to  enforce  the  criminal  laws  in  their  community.   Outstanding 
among  the  successful  prosecutors  of  the  country  at  that  time  was  Warren  Olney, 
who  had  a  rich  experience  in  the  field  by  designation  of  Earl  Warren  and  whose 
standards  of  conduct  and  professional  qualification  were  unimpeachable. 
Accordingly,  I  arranged  a  meeting  with  him  in  New  York  where  we  discussed  the 
problems  facing  the  Department  of  Justice  in  the  field  of  criminal  enforcement 
and  I  concluded  that  he  was  ideally  fitted  for  the  post  of  assistant  attorney 
general.   President  Eisenhower,  after  meeting  with  Mr.  Olney,  offered  him  the 
appointment  and  he  accepted.   His  acceptance  was  an  act  of  dedication  to  the 
public  service  because  it  required  him  to  disrupt  his  personal  and  profession 
al  plans  and  leave  congenial  surroundings  in  California  to  move  to  Washington 
and  assume  a  difficult  and  controversial  assignment. 

The  criminal  division  of  the  Justice  Department  at  that  time  comprised  a 
large  central  staff  in  Washington  and  required  supervision  over  the  United 
States  Attorneys  and  their  staffs  in  every  state  of  the  union.   In  addition 
to  enforcement  of  the  federal  criminal  statutes,  the  division  was  charged 
with  heavy  responsibilities  in  the  field  of  civil  rights,  internal  security 
and  corruption  in  the  government.   During  the  years  that  he  headed  the 
criminal  division,  he  improved  its  standards  of  integrity,  its  administrative 
efficiency,  and  brought  new  energy  and  leadership  to  the  office. 

In  the  field  of  civil  rights,  he  inherited  a  staff  of  only  three  or  four 
attorneys  with  an  inadequate  budget  and  inadequate  federal  statutes  which 
frustrated  any  attempt  to  enforce  the  constitutional  safeguards  in  the  field 
of  civil  rights.   Before  he  left  the  office,  he  had  contributed  significantly 
to  the  formulation  and  passage  of  the  Civil  Rights  Act  of  1957,  which  was  the 
first  civil  rights  act  enacted  since  the  reconstruction  days  following  the 
Civil  War.   He  laid  the  groundwork  for  the  enforcement  of  new  statutes  which 


eliminated  the  roadblocks  for  blacks  to  exercise  their  voting  rights.   He 
also  performed  yeoman  service  in  connection  with  the  great  constitutional 
crisis  in  the  field  of  civil  rights  involving  the  opening  of  the  public 
schools  in  Little  Rock,  Arkansas,  to  black  children. 

In  the  field  of  government  corruption,  he  established  high  standards  of 
nonpartisan  enforcement  of  the  federal  criminal  laws  and  successfully  prose 
cuted,  in  some  cases  with  his  personal  participation,  several  notable  cases 
involving  government  officials  who  had  transgressed  the  law.   In  the  field 
of  labor  racketeering,  he  brought  the  first  substantial  cases  under  the  Hobbs 
Act  and  established  the  standards  for  prosecution  in  this  area. 

In  the  field  of  internal  security,  he  faced  a  plethora  of  statutes  passed 
in  the  late  1940s  which  were  not  only  very  controversial  but  appeared  to 
violate  constitutional  rights  of  individual  citizens  by  imposing  severe 
restrictions  on  their  freedom  of  speech  and  association.   He  brought  about 
a  test  of  these  statutes  including  the  Subersive  Activities  Control  law,  the 
McCarran  Act,  and  allied  measures,  which  resulted  in  landmark  decisions  by 
the  Supreme  Court  defining  the  limitations  of  government  intervention  in  this 
field. 

All  in  all,  he  made  an  outstanding  contribution  to  federal  law  enforcement, 
one  which  is  having  a  continuing  beneficial  effect  by  reason  of  the  improve 
ments  in  prosecuting  methods  and  administrative  efficiency  which  he  establish 
ed.   But  most  of  all,  during  this  period  of  his  life  Warren  Olney  demonstrated 
by  personal  example  the  formula  for  an  ideal  public  servant — professional 
skill,  integrity  and  zeal.   He  displayed  warm  personal  qualities  of  friendship 
with  his  co-workers  and  deserves  a  lasting  tribute  of  his  fellow  citizens  for 
his  devotion  in  public  service. 

The  segment  of  his  lifetime  activities  encompassing  his  years  in  the 
Department  of  Justice  constituted  a  small  part  of  his  lifetime  contribution 
in  the  field  of  the  administration  of  justice.   In  the  course  of  my  friendship 
with  him,  I  learned  that  the  qualities  that  he  displayed  during  those  years 
governed  his  conduct  throughout  his  career  and  I  am  very  pleased  that  his 
memoirs  will  be  available  at  The  Bancroft  Library  for  scholarly  research  as 
well  as  for  general  reading. 


Herbert  Brownell 

United  States  Attorney  General 

1953  to  1957 

24  October  1979 
New  York,  New  York 


IN  MEMORY  OF  WARREN  OLNEY  III  by  Scott  Elder 


For  many  of  us  memories  of  Warren  commence  when  he  was  a  boy  in  knee-pants 
mounted  on  his  bicycle.   Etna  Street,  where  I  lived,  was  around  the  corner 
and  down  a  block  from  Warren's  family  home  on  Dwight  Way.   It  swarmed  with 
children  and  the  street  was  our  playground.  Warren  would  come  riding  down  to 
join  us  in  a  game  of  one-o'-cat,  field  hockey,  or  some  other.  He  was  a  free 
spirit,  though,  and  ours  was  not  the  only  such  group  that  he  visited.   He  had 
friends  and  acquaintances  everywhere,  so  it  seemed.   He  was  left-handed,  and 
as  "Lefty"  he  was  known  by  all.   Distinguished  though  he  became,  "Lefty"  he 
always  liked  to  be  called  by  his  friends  of  those  days. 

He  was  a  friendly  and  outgoing  boy  and  the  best  of  companions,  but  still 
with  a  quiet  reserve  until  he  knew  you  well,  and  an  underlying  seriousness. 
His  individuality  was  never  submerged  in  any  group  and  he  was  impervious  to 
peer  pressure. 

Warren  was  strongly  attached  to  all  his  family.   He  had  great  admiration 
and  affection  for  his  father  and  grandfather,  whose  namesake  he  was.   Family 
outings  of  many  kinds  made  a  lifelong  impression  on  him.   Probably  from  these 
came  his  love  of  the  out-of-doors  and  wilderness,  his  interest  in  wildlife, 
and  his  taste  for  adventure.   Or  perhaps  it  was  his  nature  to  find  adventure 
in  so  much  that  he  did.   Saturday  hikes  exploring  the  Berkeley  hills,  a 
memorable  spring  camping  trip  on  Mt.  Diablo,  and,  later,  trips  packing  in  the 
mountains,  tracing  an  earthquake  fault,  or  an  emigrant  trail — to  all  such  he 
gave  that  touch.   Certainly  the  spirit  of  adventure  was  present  in  his 
approach  to  many  of  the  tasks  of  his  public  life. 

Warren's  school  years  were  normal  enough  except  that  he  was  slow  to  show 
an  interest  in  girls.  Almost  the  first  to  receive  any  particular  attention 
from  him  was  Elizabeth  Bazata,  and  he  needed  to  find  no  other.   Their  wedding 
took  place  while  he  was  still  a  student  in  law  school.  More  than  two  years 
ago  they  celebrated  their  Golden  Wedding  Anniversary.   Always  they  were  full 
and  equal  life  partners  and  close  companions. 

Law  was  not  the  only  vocation  that  Warren  considered.   Another  one  was  to 
become  an  historian.   History  was  one  of  his  great  interests,  on  which  he 
read  widely  and  with  a  marvelously  retentive  mind.   As  an  avocation,  he  did 
indeed  become  an  historian  of  no  small  erudition,  amazing  us  often  by  his 
ability  to  discourse  extemporaneously  in  colorful  detail  on  almost  any 
historical  subject.   Related  to  his  love  of  history  was  another  great 
interest — archeology. 


xii 


Warren  was  not  a  particularly  enthusiastic  law  student,  which  once  led  one 
of  his  professors,  ironically  enough  the  professor  of  criminal  law,  to  comment 
rather  gloomily  on  Warren's  prospects  in  the  profession.   Little  did  the  good 
professor  know  his  student.   Real-life  experience  fired  Warren's  drive,  if 
firing  was  needed.   This  he  gained  quickly  on  his  first  job,  as  a  deputy 
district  attorney  in  Contra  Costa  County,  and,  after  a  very  few  years,  in 
Alameda  County  under  Earl  Warren,  then  district  attorney  there.   The  work  as 
a  prosecutor  suited  Warren  admirably.   It  gave  scope  to  his  love  of  indepen 
dence,  his  resourcefulness  and  originality.   It  appealed  to  his  interest  in 
people  and  fulfilled  his  sense  of  social  responsibility.  He  embraced  it  with 
relish  and  dedication. 

Measure  his  success  by  the  value  placed  on  Warren  by  his  chief,  Earl 
Warren,  who  at  every  subsequent  stage  of  his  career  in  public  office  called 
on  Warren  for  an  extraordinary  public  service.   Appointments  by  others,  each 
successively  higher,  came  to  him  too,  and  eventually  his  service  record 
included  the  following:   assistant  attorney  general  of  California  in  the 
criminal  division;  counsel  to  the  California  Crime  Commission  created  by 
Governor  Warren  to  investigate  organized  crime;  professor  of  criminal  law  at 
Boalt  Hall  of  Law,  Berkeley;  deputy  attorney  general  of  the  United  States  in 
charge  of  criminal  matters;  director  of  the  Administrative  Office  of  the 
Federal  Courts.   In  these  posts  he  made  a  mammoth  contribution  to  the  admin 
istration  of  criminal  justice  and  to  the  improvement  of  the  legal  system. 
But  in  addition  to  all  that,  he  served  three  war-time  years  overseas  in  the 
Marine  Corps;  was  in  private  civil  law  practice  during  two  separate  periods; 
and  during  his  retirement  years  served  as  special  master  for  a  federal 
district  court  in  New  York.  What  a  unique  and  utterly  remarkable  career  for 
only  one  man! 

Warren  had,  rather  than  self-confidence,  an  absence  of  self-concern.   Free 
from  blockages,  integrated,  at  peace  with  himself,  when  he  had  a  job  to  do  he 
faced  it  and  set  about  doing  it.   No  prospect  intimidated  him.  He  worked 
deeply  absorbed  in  what  he  was  doing,  unsparing  of  himself.   Afterwards,  he 
was  unpretentions  about  what  he  had  done.   He  was  warm  in  his  appreciation  of 
his  co-workers  and  their  efforts  and  interested  himself  in  advancing  promising 
careers. 

His  work  in  Washington  brought  him  new  honor  and  distinction  and  many  new 
friends,  including  intimates  in  high  places.   Nothing  during  those  years  there 
changed  him  at  all.  He  returned  here  unaffected,  as  natural  and  unassuming  as 
always . 

Washington,  which  so  often  permanently  captures  those  who  go  there  to  work 
in  government,  could  not  hold  Warren  and  Elizabeth.   Their  children  and  grand 
children  here  were  the  reason.   Even  as  such  family  relationships  naturally 
go,  closer  ties  than  theirs  are  not  likely  to  be  found.  Warren's  new  leisure 


xiii 


left  him  free  to  enjoy  them.   That  he  did  heartily  at  every  opportunity,  of 
which  there  were  many.  Wonderful  vacations  with  great  collections  of  off 
spring  and  spouses  of  offspring  became  a  tradition.   To  me  they  seemed  to 
resemble  the  family  outings  of  Warren's  boyhood,  of  which  he  so  often  spoke. 
His  fond  recollections  of  them  will  surely  have  their  rich  counterparts  in 
the  memories  of  his  own  family  members. 

We,  too,  each  of  us  individually,  will  have  our  own  abundant  store  of 
recollections.   Happily,  it  will  be  easy  to  remember  Warren  Olney  III. 


Scott  Elder 
6  January  1979 


Berkeley  Independent  and 
Gazette.  December  23,  1978 


xiv 


OBITUARY  NOTICES 


Famous  law  reformer 
Warren  Ol  ney  HI  dies 


BERKELEY  -  Warren 
Olney,  III,  once  a  prominent 
prosecutor  for  the  state  and 
federal  governments,  died 
Wednesday  at  his  Berkeley 
home.  He  was  74. 

Mr.  Olney  helped  reform 
sentencing  practices  by  the 
federal  judiciary  and  was 
credited  by  Chief  Justice 
Warren  Burger  as  being 
"responsible  for  new  ideas 
in  the  judicial  administra 
tion." 

A  protege  of  Justice 
Burger's  predecessor,  the 
late  Earl  Warren,  Mr.  Olney 
was  Warren's  deputy  when 
the  latter  was  district  attor 
ney  of  Alameda  County  and 
California  attorney  gen 
eral;  he  later  was  Warren's 
administrator  at  the  U.S. 
Supreme  Court. 

Born  in  Oakland  and 
raised  in  Berkeley.  Mr. 
Olney  received  his 
bachelor's  and  law  degrees 
from  UC-Berkeley,  where 
he  later  taught  law  and 
criminology;  in  recent 
years,  he  helped  organize 

the  Earl  Waren  oral  history 
project  at  the  Bancroft  Lib- 
rary. 

He  began  his  career  as 
deputy  district  attorney  in 
Contra  Costa  County,  then 
joined  District  Attorney 
Warren's  staff  in  Alameda 
County  and  later  practiced 
law  briefly  with  his  father's 
firm  in  San  Francisco  be 
fore  joining  Attorney  Gen 
eral  Warren  in  Sacramento. 

A  veteran  of  service  in  the 
Pacific  with  the  Fourth 
Marine  Air  Wing  in  World 
War  II.  he  attained  the  rank 
of  lieutenant  colonel.  After 
the  war,  he  became  chief 
counsel  for  a  study  of  or 
ganized  crime  in  California 
and  in  1953,  President 
Dwight  Eisenhower  named 
him  assistant  attorney  gen 
eral  in  charge  of  the  crimi 
nal  division  in  the  Justice 
Department. 


Mr.  Olney  drafted  the  1956 
Civil  Rights  Act,  forerunner 
of  the  1960's  legislation.  In, 
1958,  Olney  was  named  by 
Chief  Justice  Warren  to  take 
charge  of  the  administra 
tion  of  federal  courts.  In  this 
job,  he  began  training  prog- 
rams  for  judges  and 
pioneered  efforts  which  led 
to  the  founding  of  a  federal 
judicial  center  near 
Lafayette  Park  in 
Washington. 

Returning  to  his  Berkeley 
home  in  1967,  he  became 
West  Coast  advisor  for  the 
American  Society  of  Com 
posers,  Authors,  and  Pub 
lishers.  He  belonged  to  San 
Francisco  and  California 
Bar  Associations  and  re 
ceived  an  honorary  degree 
from  Mills  College. 

Mr.  Olney's  grandfather,,; 
was  a  former  mayor  of  Oak- .» 
land  and  a  founder  of  the « 
Sierra  Club.  His  father ,\ 
Warren  Olney,  Jr.,  was  an* 
associate  justice  of  the 
California  Supreme  Court.  i 

Survivors  include  his) 
widow,  Elizabeth;  two! 
daughters,  Elizabeth  An-; 
d  er  son  of  Berkeley  who  is  an  j 
attorney  in  Oakland,  and* 
Margaret  Olney  of  Ber-j 
keley,  an  author;  and  a  son  J 
Warren  Olney,  IV,  reporter 
for  KNBC-TV  in  LosC 
Angeles.  There  are  six- 
grandchildren.  : 

Memorial  services  are 
scheduled  for  Saturday, 
Jan.  6,  at  11  a.m.  in  the-? 
chapel  of  Berkeley's  First? 
Congregational  Church  at/ 
Dana  and  Durant  Avenues-- 
The  family  suggests  memo-?! 
rial  donations  to  the  Smith-:- 
sonian  Institute  or  to  the-? 
Friends  of  Alta  Bates  Com-j 
munity  Hospital  in  Ber-9 
keley. 


XV 


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XVI 


INTERVIEW  HISTORY 


Warren  Olney  III,  whose  oral  history  memoir  is  bound  herein,  was  much 
more  than  simply  a  memoirist  for  the  Regional  Oral  History  Office's  Earl 
Warren  Project.  He  helped  initiate  and  organize  the  project,  which 
eventually  numbered  over  one  hundred  interviews  documenting  Earl  Warren's 
California  career  in  public  office.   He  served  as  an  invaluable  advisor 
in  choosing  interviewees  and  suggesting  the  critical  areas  to  be  covered 
in  their  oral  histories.   Most  of  all,  with  his  own  lifelong  love  and 
knowledge  of  history,  he  provided  an  oral  history  memoir  that  is  a  rich 
source  of  information  and  a  model  of  a  carefully  presented  document  that 
is  as  accurate  as  he  could  make  it. 

Because  of  Mr.  Olney 's  importance  to  the  Earl  Warren  series,  the 
interviews  with  him  spanned  almost  the  entire  period  of  the  project.   The 
interviews  commenced  with  two  sessions  on  July  28  and  30,  1970,  conducted 
by  Amelia  Fry,  and  covered  his  distinguished  family,  Berkeley,  California 
childhood,  and  education  at  the  University  of  California,  Berkeley.   Sub 
sequent  interviews,  held  in  1972,  1974,  1976,  and  1977,  were  conducted  by 
Miriam  Stein,  for  a  total  of  eighteen  sessions.  Most  of  the  sessions  were 
held  in  the  den  of  the  spacious  Olney  home  in  north  Berkeley.  When  circum 
stances  dictated,  recordings  took  place  in  his  law  office  in  Oakland,  where 
he  kept  some  of  his  papers  and  memorabilia. 

Mr.  Olney 's  careful  preparation  for  the  interview  series  and  his  devotion 
to  accurate  detail  are  evident  on  every  page  of  the  memoir.   He  gathered 
together  his  extensive  collection  of  papers:   clippings,  scrapbooks,  corre 
spondence,  reports,  government  and  legal  documents,  and  photographs,  and 
carefully  reviewed  them,  taking  special  care  to  double  check  doubtful  facts 
and  accounts  with  other  documentary  sources  or  eyewitnesses.  When  sources 
new  to  him  came  to  his  attention  (books,  for  example,  discovered  by  the 
interviewer) ,  he  eagerly  reviewed  them  and  incorporated  this  material  into 
his  account.   He  had  a  clear  concept  of  the  information  that  was  important 
to  capture  for  the  record,  and  he  conducted  his  interview  sessions  with 
economy  and  efficiency. 

The  tapes  were  transcribed,  then  edited  lightly  for  clarity  by  the  inter 
viewer.  Mr.  Olney  was  nearing  the  end  of  a  long  and  careful  review  of  the 
transcription  when  he  passed  away  on  December  20,  1978.  He  had  made  exten 
sive  additions  and  corrections,  with  two  goals  in  mind:   to  provide  as 
historically  accurate  a  document  as  possible,  and  to  provide  a  memoir  for 
his  family.   However,  since  Mr.  Olney 's  revisions  were  not  completed,  the 
reader  is  urged  to  apply  extra  diligence. 


XV11 


In  the  summer  of  1978,  Mr.  Olney  was  interviewed  by  writer  and  legal 
scholar  Dori  Dressander,  in  preparation  for  her  book  on  civil  rights  during 
the  Eisenhower  administration.   During  these  interviews,  Mr.  Olney  reviewed 
and  expanded  upon  his  recollections  of  several  events  he  had  discussed  in 
the  Regional  Oral  History  Office's  interviews.   Upon  completion  of  her  book, 
Miss  Dressander  will  deposit  transcripts  of  her  interviews  in  The  Bancroft 
Library,  and  the  reader  is  urged  to  consult  them  in  conjunction  with  this 
volume.   Footnotes  herein  indicate  where  the  Dressander  interview  corrects 
or  clarifies  points  in  this  volume. 

Mr.  Olney 's  extraordinary  memoir  documents  important  aspects  of  20th 
century  California  and  federal  history  of  law,  criminal  justice,  and  law 
enforcement.   It  also  sheds  valuable  light  on  the  development  of  Earl 
Warren's  career,  describes  the  contributions  of  the  distinguished  Olney 
family,  and  vividly  describes  the  adventures  of  a  boy  growing  up  in  early 
20th  century  Berkeley. 


Miriam  F.  Stein 
Interviewer-Editor 


10  December  1979 

Regional  Oral  History  Office 

486  The  Bancroft  Library 

University  of  California  at  Berkeley 


I   GRANDPARENTS 

[Interview  1:  July  28,  1970]* 

Fry:     Why  don't  you  start  out  and  tell  us  about  your  grandparents. 

Olney:   My  paternal  grandfather  was  Warren  Olney,  Sr.   He  was  born  in  a 

small  log  cabin  in  Indian  country  in  Iowa  in  1841.  He  was  one  of 
eight  children,  and  was  the  eldest.   His  father,  William  Olney, 
the  second  of  that  name,  had  been  born  in  upper  New  York  State. 
As  a  boy  he  had  come  with  the  senior  William  and  the  rest  of  the 
family  in  a  flatboat  down  the  Allegheny  River  and  the  Ohio  River 
to  Marietta,  Ohio,  where  they  remained  for  a  few  years,  and  then 
moved  farther  west  to  Illinois. 

The  senior  William  moved  the  whole  family  to  Iowa  when  it  was 
first  opened  up  for  settlement.   The  younger  William  married  there 
and  settled  on  a  remote  tract  taken  from  the  Sacs  and  Fox  Indians 
by  the  treaty  ending  the  Black  Hawk  War.   He  built  a  one-room  cabin 
where  my  grandfather  was  born  on  March  11,  1841.  All  of  this  is 
related  in  the  little  autobiography  my  grandfather  started  to  write 
just  before  he  died.  Have  you  seen  that? 

Fry :     No . 

Olney:   Maybe  I'd  better  show  it  to  you.   [shows  interviewer  book,  Warren 
Olney.  1841-1921**] 


*For  a  guide  indicating  the  sequence  of  interviews  as  taped,  see 
page  488. 


** 


Available  in  The  Bancroft  Library. 


Olney:   This  was  published  just  for  the  family  in  1961.   On  his  eightieth 
birthday  Warren  Olney  started  to  write  the  story  of  his  life  for 
the  benefit  of  his  grandchildren.  He  had  hardly  got  started  when 
he  died,  but  he  had  written  quite  a  little  about  his  boyhood  in 
Iowa.   He  was  staying  out  at  the  Mt.  Diablo  Country  Club,  but  he 
got  ill  while  he  was  out  there  with  bronchitis,  and  died  as  a 
result  of  it.  So  he  never  finished  this.  This  little  beginning 
was  written  in  longhand. 

At  the  time  of  his  death  they  were  going  to  throw  those  hand 
written  pages  away,  and  I  grabbed  them  and  kept  them.   Some  forty 
years  later  my  aunt,  Ethel  Olney  Easton,  got  interested  in  publish 
ing  her  father's  account  of  his  experiences  at  the  battle  of  Shiloh. 
I  showed  these  handwritten  pages  to  her  and  said,  "If  you're  going 
to  publish  that,  you'd  better  put  in  these  pages,  too."  This 
account  was  for  members  of  the  family.  There's  a  great  deal  of 
detailed  information  about  his  early  life,  his  father,  and  his 
forebears  in  there,  too.  As  much  as  he  knew. 

Fry:     Good.  Then  all  we  need  to  put  on  the  tape  is  information  that  will 
supplement  this . 

Olney:   Yes.  My  grandmother  was  Mary  Craven.   She  and  my  grandfather  met 
at  a  little  college,  Central  College,  in  Iowa,  just  before  the 
Civil  War,  and  were  married  after  the  war.   She  came,  then,  to 
California  with  him.  Her  background  is  quite  similar  to  his. 

My  mother's  father  was  Dr.  John  Knox  McLean.   There's  a  little 
book  about  him.  He  was  born  in  Jackson,  New  York,  in  March  of  1834. 
He  graduated  from  Union  College  in  1858  where  he  was  elected  to  Phi 
Beta  Kappa.  Then  he  entered  Princeton  Theological  Seminary  and 
graduated  with  a  Doctor's  degree.  He  came  to  California  in  1871 
and  became  minister  of  the  First  Congregational  Church  in  Oakland 
in  1872  where  he  served  for  twenty- three  years.  He  then  became 
president  of  the  Pacific  Theological  Seminary,  now  known  as  the 
Pacific  School  of  Religion,  which  he  served  for  seventeen  years. 
He  died  in  1914. 

Fry:     Can  you  give  me  the  title  of  that  book? 

Olney:    It's  called  John  Knox  McLean;   A  Biography.   It's  by  John  Wright 
Buckham,  printed  in  1914  by  Smith  Brothers  in  Oakland.* 


*Available  in  The  Bancroft  Library. 


Olney:   His  wife,  my  grandmother,  was  Sarah  Matilda  Hawley.   She  was  born 
and  brought  up  in  Salem,  New  York.   She  met  my  grandfather  there 
when  they  were  both  very  young.   She  married  my  grandfather  when 
he  was  pastor  of  the  Congregational  Church  of  Springfield,  Illinois, 
where  he  served  for  four  years.   She  lived  to  be  ninety-eight. 

Fry:     Why  did  her  family  come  out  here? 

Olney:    She  was  married  in  the  East.   She  knew  my  grandfather  in  the  East, 
and  her  family  didn't  move  out  here.  The  rest  of  both  families 
remained  in  Salem. 

Fry:     Are  the  McLeans'  reasons  for  coming  out  recorded? 

Olney:   Yes.   They  had  been  in  a  church  at  Springfield,  Illinois,  when 

Grandfather  got  a  "call"  to  the  First  Congregational  Church  here 
in  Oakland.   The  church  had  a  vacancy.   They  asked  him  to  come,  so 
he  came  and  took  it  over.   He  served  for  twenty- three  years  and  he 
was  succeeded  by  Dr.  Charles  R.  Brown,  who  carried  the  church  on 
for  ten  or  fifteen  years,  and  then  became  dean  of  the  Divinity 
School  at  Yale.   The  Browns  became  very  close  friends  of  my  parents 
as  well  as  my  grandparents  on  both  sides. 


II   FATHER:   WARREN  OLNEY,  JR. 


Background 


Olney:   My  father  was  born  on  October  15,  1870  in  San  Francisco.  He  was 
the  oldest  of  five  children,  three  sons  and  two  daughters.  The 
family  moved  to  Oakland.   They  built  a  house  at  427  29th  Street  in 
Oakland  when  he  was  quite  young . 

My  grandfather  had  done  quite  well  as  a  lawyer.   He  hadn't 
practiced  very  long  in  San  Francisco,  but  he  had  done  well  enough 
to  build  his  own  home.   He  sent  my  grandmother  with  the  children 
on  a  lengthy  trip  to  Iowa  to  visit  her  relatives  and  his.  Without 
her  knowing  it,  he  went  ahead  and  got  an  architect,  and  designed 
and  built  this  house  on  29th  Street  in  Oakland.   [laughter] 

Fry:     A  brave  and  bold  man. 

Olney:   Poor  Grandma  came  home  and  was  faced  with  this  house  about  which 
she  had  never  been  consulted,  and  she  lived  in  it  the  rest  of  her 
life.  We've  never  understood  how  this  could  be  done'.   [laughter] 
It  was  a  nice  old  home,  and  we  all  got  to  love  it  very  much, 
especially  the  grandchildren. 

Lest  you  get  the  impression  that  my  grandfather  was  the  family 
autocrat,  I  think  I  should  tell  you  another  story  about  the  family. 
For  some  years  my  grandfather  Olney  owned  a  ranch  out  in  Stone 
Valley  at  the  base  of  Mt.  Diablo.   It  was  not  a  large  acreage,  but 
Grandfather  planted  a  walnut  orchard  and  raised  oats  and  a  few 
other  crops,  as  I  remember.  Grandmother  had  a  vegetable  garden 
with  corn  and  the  most  delicious  watermelons  I  have  ever  tasted. 

However,  the  ranch  was  hard  to  get  to  from  Oakland.  The  best 
way  was  to  take  the  S.P.  [Southern  Pacific]  train  to  Martinez  and 
then  take  a  branch  line  that  ran  south  through  the  San  Ramon  Valley, 


Olney:   getting  off  at  Danville.   You  needed  someone  to  meet  you  with  a 
horse  and  buggy  at  Danville  as  the  ranch  was  a  good  three  miles 
from  the  station.   The  only  other  way  to  reach  the  ranch  was  to 
drive  by  horse  and  wagon  over  the  Fish  Ranch  Road  through  Walnut 
Creek  and  Alamo,  and  this  was  an  all-day  trip,  although  it  was  not 
really  much  longer  in  time  than  the  railroad. 

Notwithstanding  these  difficulties,  Grandfather  and  Grandmother 
spent  a  good  deal  of  time  at  the  ranch,  and  they  very  much  liked  to 
have  their  children  and  grandchildren  out  there  with  them.   The 
ranch  was  not  very  popular  with  Grandfather's  daughters-in-law  or 
even  with  his  daughters.   The  men  liked  it  well  enough,  when  they 
could  get  out  there,  and,  of  course,  we  grandchildren  adored  it. 

It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  under  Grandfather's  ownership 
the  ranch  had  acquired  certain  rather  unattractive  features.  For 
example,  the  original  entrance  was  by  a  curving  road  across  a 
pleasant  field  to  the  front  door.   For  reasons  unknown  Grampa 
fenced  this  off  so  the  only  approach  was  from  a  road  to  the  side 
of  the  house.   On  making  this  approach  one  first  crossed  a  rickety 
old  bridge  across  the  creek  and  arrived  at  a  large  and  odiferous 
hog  pen  with  only  a  rail  fence  keeping  the  hogs  and  slop  off  the 
road .   The  entrance  to  the  house  by  this  route  was  through  the 
kitchen. 

The  house  was  a  two-story  clapboard  affair  made  out  of  lumber 
that  was  supposed  to  have  been  brought  around  the  Horn  and  certainly 
looked  like  it.   The  rooms  were  papered,  but  the  bedroom  ceilings 
were  for  some  reason  covered  with  an  Osnaburg-like  material  that 
sagged  between  its  fastenings.   There  were  mice  in  the  walls  and 
they  would  come  out  at  night  and  race  squeaking  across  the  sagging 
cloth  on  the  ceilings.  My  mother,  for  one,  did  not  enjoy  lying  in 
bed  watching  their  little  footfalls  on  the  cloth  above  her. 

In  1910  or  1911  Grandfather  took  an  extended  trip  to  Egypt, 
Palestine,  and  Europe.   He  took  my  grandmother  and  their  then 
unmarried  daughter  Ethel  with  him.  He  gave  his  general  power  of 
attorney  to  my  father  to  meet  any  emergency  while  he  was  gone.  He 
left  home  talking  about  retiring  to  the  ranch  when  he  returned 
from  Europe. 

His  train  had  hardly  crossed  the  Sierra  Nevada  when  my  father, 
acting  under  the  power  of  attorney,  put  the  ranch  up  for  sale  to 
the  cheers  of  all  the  family,  the  grandchildren  excepted.   Poor 
Grampa  came  home  to  no  ranch.   As  you  can  see,  Grandfather  did  not 
have  his  own  way  all  of  the  time  or  even  much  of  the  time,  although 
he  would  from  time  to  time  take  the  bit  in  his  teeth. 


Olney:    In  1920  my  father  was  a  candidate  for  re-election  as  associate 

justice  of  the  supreme  court  of  California,  having  been  appointed 
to  that  position  March  1,  1919  by  Governor  W.D.  Stephens  to  fill 
the  vacancy  caused  by  the  resignation  of  Justice  Sloss.   In  connec 
tion  with  his  re-election  campaign  a  short  biographical  statement 
was  published  which  gives  his  educational  and  professional  history 
in  succinct  form.   It  reads  as  follows:   [reproduced  on  following 
page] 

I  have  quoted  that  biographical  sketch  only  because  it  gives  the 
facts  about  my  father's  education  and  early  career  more  accurately 
than  I  could  off  the  top  of  my  head.   Incidentally,  the  political 
campaign  for  which  the  sketch  was  prepared  is  something  of  a 
curiosity. 

Father's  campaign  for  re-election  was  managed  by  Jesse  H. 
Steinhart  of  San  Francisco  and  was  simplicity  itself.   The  voting 
was  to  be  at  the  general  election  in  November  1920,  but  the  campaign 
began  as  early  as  January.   On  the  26th  of  that  month  Father's 
candidacy  for  re-election  was  announced  by  Mr.  Steinhart  by  means 
of  sending  a  letter  on  the  subject  to  every  lawyer  in  the  state. 
The  letter  was  signed  by  forty-five  lawyers  from  all  parts  of  the 
state.   These  were  all  outstanding  lawyers  of  the  day  and  the  list 
was  a  very  potent  one. 

The  addressees  were  asked  to  respond  to  Mr.  Steinhart  if  they 
were  willing  to  assist  in  Father's  re-election  and  the  response  was 
excellent.   To  the  best  of  my  knowledge,  all  they  were  ever  asked 
to  do  was  to  spread  the  word  about  Father  and  to  ask  the  local 
newspapers  to  publish  the  announcement  of  his  candidacy  and  some 
of  the  biographical  material.  I  do  not  believe  there  was  ever  a 
campaign  fund  established.   I  have  no  recollection  of  any  billboards, 
newspaper  advertisements,  or  even  election  cards — although  it  does 
seem  as  though  there  must  have  been  something  along  that  line.   Of 
course,  radio  and  TV  did  not  exist. 

I  do  not  recall  Father  addressing  any  political  meetings  as  part 
of  his  campaign,  but  I  do  know  that  between  January  and  the  election 
in  November,  Father  made  an  effort  to  visit  as  many  county  court 
houses  around  the  state  as  possible  where  he  would  call  upon  the 
superior  court  judges.  These  were  out  and  out  campaign  visits  and 


Biographical  Sketch  of  Warren  Olney,  Jr. 

Warren  Olney,  Jr.,  was  born  in  San  Francisco  October  15,  1870.  He  was  the  son  of  Warren 
Olney,  a  prominent  lawyer  of  San  Francisco,  well  known  throughout  the  state  and  a  veteran  of 
the  Union  Army  in  the  Civil  War.  He  married  in  1899  and  has  three  children. 

Warren  Olney,  Jr.,  was  educated  in  and  graduated  from  the  public  schools  of  Oakland,  Cali 
fornia,  after  which  he  attended  the  University  of  California  for  four  years,  spent  one  year  in 
graduate  work  at  Harvard,  and  completed  his  legal  education  at  Hastings  College  of  Law,  graduat- 
in^  at  the  head  of  his  class  from  that  institution. 

B 

After  graduating  from  law  school  in  1894  he  engaged  in  the  practice  of  law  with  his  father 
in  San  Francisco. 

One  year  later,  in  1895,  ne  was  appointed  assistant  professor  of  law  at  the  Hastings  College 
of  Law,  and  continued  in  that  position  until  1902. 

In  1902  he  resigned  from  that  position  and  became  a  lecturer  at  the  newly  founded  School 
of  Jurisprudence  at  the  University  of  California,  from  which  position  he  resigned  later  on  in  order 
to  devote  himself  exclusively  to  his  private  practice.  In  1907  he  became  general  attorney  for 
the  Western  Pacific  Railroad  Company,  then  being  built  into  the  state. 

In  1910  he  became  a  member  of  the  firm  of  Page,  McCutchen,  Olney  and  Knight,  of  San 
Francisco,  which  firm  was  later  to  be  known  as  McCutchen,  Olney  and  Willard,  and  from  which 
firm  Mr.  Olney  resigned  upon  his  appointment  to  the  Supreme  bench  in  1919. 

In  1911  Mr.  Olney  was  .appointed  attorney  for  the  Board  of  Regents  of  the  University  of 
California,  from  which  position  he  likewise  resigned  upon  his  appointment  to  the  bench. 

Mr.  Olney,  at  the  present  time,  is  one  of  the  Trustees  of  the  Hastings  College  of  Law,  of 
San  Francisco. 

During  the  war  Mr.  Olney  was  appointed  a  member  of  the  State  Registration  Bureau,  which 
had  charge  of  arranging  for  and  carrying  through  the  matter  of  registration  for  the  draft,  and 
upon  the  organization  of  the  Draft  Boards  he  was  appointed  a  member  and  became  chairman  of 
the  Federal  Exemption  Board  of  Division  One,  Northern  District  of  California. 

He  was  also  appointed  a  member  of  and  became  chairman  of  the  State  Military  Welfare 
Commission  and  served  in  that  capacity  throughout  the  war.  He  also  served  as  a  member  of  the 
Advisory  Cabinet  of  the  State  Council  of  Defense. 

In  February,  1919.  Mr.  Olney  was  appointed  associate  justice  of  the  Supreme  bench,  to 
fill  the  vacancy  created  by  the  resignation  of  Mr.  Justice  Sloss. 

Recently  Mr.  Olney  was  one  of  the  persons  agreed  to  by  both  sides  to  arbitrate  the  differences 
between  the  street  and  interurban  railway  company  operating  on  the  east  side  of  San  Francisco 
Bay,  and  its  men,  in  regard  to  wages,  hours  and  working  conditions.  Justice  Olney  was  made  chair 
man  of  the  board  and  within  less  than  thirty  days  after  its  appointment  the  board  made  an  award, 
which  has  received  the  commendation  of  both  sides  for  its  fairness  and  justice. 


8 


Olney:    there  was  no  subterfuge  about  it.  My  brother  and  I  accompanied  my 
father  on  a  number  of  trips  about  the  state  during  this  period  and 
he  never  missed  a  judge  or  a  courthouse.  We,  of  course,  waited 
outside  during  these  visits.   It  seems  hard  to  believe  now  that  any 
campaign  for  a  state-wide  office  in  California  could  ever  have  been 
so  simple. 


Representing  the  University  of  California  Board  of  Regents 


Olney:   I  do  recall  that  Father  was  attorney  for  the  Board  of  Regents  when 
I  was  a  boy.   I  see  here  the  years  were  1911-1919.   I  remember  that 
because  by  virtue  of  it  my  brother  and  I  had  permission  to  swim  in 
the  University  of  California  swimming  pool.   [laughter]   Nobody 
else  could  among  our  friends . 

I  do  recall  that  it  was  during  this  period  that  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Peder  Sather  were  making  gifts  to  the  University,  and  my  father  was 
not  only  counsel  to  the  Board  of  Regents,  but  he  was  personal  attor 
ney  for  Mrs.  Sather.   He  was  her  attorney  at  the  time  she  made  her 
decision  to  give  the  money  for  the  campanile.  My  father  told  me 
that  he  had  endeavored  to  persuade  her  not  to  give  the  money  for 
that  purpose,  but  to  give  it  for  faculty  endowment.   But  she  wanted 
to  have  a  physical  monument  to  her  husband,  as  well  as  giving  some 
thing  for  the  University.   Father  later  thought  the  campanile  was 
so  successful  that  he  became  reconciled  to  her  having  left  the  money 
for  that  purpose.  He  thought  it  was  a  pretty  good  campanile  when 
they  got  it  built. 

Fry:     Professor  Leon  Richardson  told  in  his  interview  about  going  over 
and  picking  out  the  bells  in  this  large  expansive  field,  in 
Holland,  I  believe. 

Olney:   Yes. 

Fry:     I  wonder  if  he  had  talked  to  your  father.   Do  you  remember  them 
discussing  this  question? 

Olney:   Well,  I  don't.  But  he  was  over  at  our  house  and  we  were  at  their 
house  very  often.   So  I'm  sure  they  did  talk  about  it. 

Of  course,  I  remember  President  Wheeler,  but  until  I  read  this 
here  [interview  outline] ,  I  was  never  aware  of  the  fact  that  he 
went  to  pieces  in  office.   I  didn't  know  that.   I  didn't  know  there 
was  any  three-man  troika  that  had  to  try  to  fill  in  at  that  period. 


Olney:   We  also  knew  General — he  wasn't  General  then — David  Prescott 

Barrows.   He  was  a  graduate  of  Pomona  College,  and  my  mother's 
father,  Dr.  McLean,  was  one  of  the  founders  and  original  trustees 
of  Pomona  College.   My  mother  served  there  as  dean  of  women,  at 
one  time.  My  mother  knew  David  Barrows  when  they  were  both 
children  attending  my  grandfather's  church  in  Oakland. 

The  Barrows  family  moved  to  the  Ojai  Valley  at  an  early  date. 
I  am  under  the  impression  that  David  Barrows  was  a  student  at 
Pomona  during  the  year  or  so  that  my  mother  served  as  dean  of 
women,  but  I  am  not  sure  about  this.   On  further  thought,  I  must 
be  wrong  about  this  because  they  were  of  the  same  age. 

At  any  rate,  they  knew  one  another  very  well. 
Fry:     When  was  she  dean  of  women  there?   It  was  before  you  went  there. 

Olney:   It  was  before  she  was  married.   She  was  just  out  of  school  and  had 
had  only  one  year  teaching  English  at  Stanford  University.   She 
was  hardly  more  than  a  glorified  housemother!   [laughter]   Pomona 
was  a  very  small  college.   There  were  only  a  few  students,  and  the 
duties  weren't  onerous.   That  was  the  period  when  my  father  was 
courting  her.   He  used  to  come  to  see  her  at  this  dormitory,  Smiley 
Hall,  and  she'd  entertain  him  in  the  parlor  while  all  the  girls 
would  sit  on  the  stairs  and  watch  them  through  the  transom, 
[laughter] 

Fry:     A  reverse  chaperone. 

Olney:   Dr.  Barrows,  you  know,  went  to  the  Philippines  and  was  there  for  a 
long  time,  directing  education  there.  When  they  came  back  to 
Berkeley,  we  saw  a  great  deal  of  them.   They  moved  into  a  house  on 
Regent  Street,  which  was  only  a  few  blocks  from  our  home  on  Dwight 
Way.   Our  two  families  once  celebrated  the  Fourth  of  July  together 
with  a  picnic  in  Strawberry  Canyon  shortly  after  the  Barrows'  return 
from  the  Philippines. 

Fry:     Is  it  true  that  President  Barrows  read  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence  in  a  resounding  basso  on  the  Fourth  of  July?  His  granddaughter 
told  me  that  this  is  what  she  remembered;  she  had  to  sit  through 
this  on  every  Fourth  of  July.   [laughter] 

Olney:   Well,  I  wouldn't  doubt  it.   His  granddaughter,  however,  must  be 

talking  about  occurrences  many  years  later — probably  at  their  ranch 
in  Acalanes  Valley. 


Fry: 


Do  you  remember  that? 


10 


Olney:   I  wouldn't  doubt  it.   That  makes  him  sound  as  though  he  was  a  very 
stuffy  man.   He  was  anything  but.  He  was  not.  He  was  a  very 
friendly,  genial,  sympathetic,  kindly  man,  very  much  interested  in 
students  and  all  young  people. 

Fry:     Yes.   I  remember  reading  that  we  practically  had  a  riot  on  campus 
among  the  students  when  he  decided  to  resign  and  go  back  to  teach 
ing,  because  they  all  wanted  him  to  remain  as  president. 

Olney:   Yes.   That's  true.   I  have  always  entertained  a  very  great  affection 
and  admiration  for  him,  and  I  used  to  think  that  he  had  led  the  kind 
of  life  that  I  would  like  to  lead.  He  was  a  very  active  man.   He'd 
been  to  the  Philippines,  and  he  also  was  on  the  American  Expedition 
ary  Force  that  went  to  Siberia  in  1919  or  1920  during  the  Russian 
Revolution. 

Fry:     Didn't  he  also  go  to  Mexico? 

Olney:   Yes,  he  went  to  Mexico.   He  was  a  good  friend  of  Madera's,  the 

assassinated  president.   After  his  retirement,  in  typical  fashion, 
he  went  to  Africa  and  took  a  trip  down  the  Niger,  which  I  thought 
was  a  great  thing  to  do. 

When  World  War  II  came  along,  I  was  married,  of  course,  and  I 
had  children  of  my  own,  but  I  thought  I  ought  to  go  into  the  service, 
and  he  was  the  one  that  I  consulted  about  it.  He  was  always  iden 
tified  with  the  army  and  with  the  National  Guard.   I  told  him  that 
I  wanted  to  go  into  the  service,  but  not  as  a  lawyer,  and  not  for 
an  office  job.  I  thought  I  wanted  to  go  into  the  marine  corps, 
because  that  was  a  fighting  outfit. 

We  had  a  long  discussion  and  he  gave  me  a  lot  of  very  sound 
advice.  He  said  he'd  seen  the  marines  during  his  whole  career. 
He  said  it  sounded  disloyal  to  the  army  to  say  so ,  but  he  said  it 
was  just  exactly  what  I  had  in  mind.   The  marines  were  indeed  the 
fighting  outfit,  and  that  the  chances  of  my  seeing  some  action 
were  far  better  in  the  marine  corps  than  they  ever  would  be  in 
the  army. 

Fry:     Was  he  president  when  you  were  at  UC,  or  had  he  just  stepped  down? 

Olney:   No.  He  was  president  the  first  year,  anyway,  that  I  was  at  UC,  and 
that  was  the  year  that  he  left  the  presidency  and  went  back  into 
teaching.  Then  William  Wallace  Campbell  was  the  president,  until 
I  graduated . 

I  took  Dr.  Barrows'  courses,  of  course,  just  because  I  liked 
him  so  much. 


11 


Fry:     What  did  he  teach? 

Olney:   Political  science,  and  it  seems  to  me  I  had  a  history  course  from 

him  too.   But  political  science  was  the  usual  course  that  he  taught. 

Fry:     He  led  such  a  vigorous,  active  life  that  I've  always  associated  him 
with  Teddy  Roosevelt,  but  I  don't  know  whether  he  really  was  a 
Rooseveltian  type  in  his  outlook  and  beliefs  or  not. 

Olney:   Well,  he  wasn't  a  flag-waver  like  Teddy  Roosevelt,  a  big-stick  man, 
and  that  kind  of  stuff.   David  Barrows  wasn't  that  type.   He  was  a 
very  patriotic  man,  and  in  those  days  that  kind  of  patriotic  enthusi 
asm  wasn' t  regarded  with  scorn  the  way  it  is  now.   So  he  may  well 
have  recited  the  Declaration  of  Independence  on  the  Fourth  of  July. 
I  know  that  we  always  made  a  great  day  out  of  it.  We  always  got  a 
lot  of  firecrackers  and  blew  up  stuff.   [laughter] 

Fry:     I've  heard  people  say  that  in  addition  to  this  he  was  a  pretty  good 
scholar,  and  had  a  good,  critical  mind. 

Olney:   Well,  I'm  not  in  a  position  to  evaluate  it. 
Fry:     You  were  on  the  other  end  of  the  generation. 
Olney:   Yes. 


Western  Pacific  Railroad 


Olney:   Now,  going  back,  there's  little  else  about  my  father's  connection 
to  the  University  that  I  recall.   I  remember  his  work  with  Western 
Pacific,  of  course,  and  that  he  was  their  general  attorney  and 
general  counsel.   The  Western  Pacific  was  the  last  one  of  these 
transcontinental  railroads  that  was  completed.   The  first  train 
didn't  come  over  the  tracks  full  of  passengers  until  1910.   It  was 
recent  enough  so  I  can  recall  it . 

During  the  building  of  the  railroad,  and  afterwards,  there  was 
a  lot  of  litigation  because  contracts  would  be  made  for  the  build 
ing  of  tunnels,  or  fills,  or  things  of  that  sort.  Payment  was 
usually  so  much  per  yard  of  material  that  was  moved,  and  the  amount 
of  payment  would  depend  on  what  kind  of  rock  it  was,  whether  it  was 
soft  or  hard,  and  things  of  this  kind.   So  there  were  always  a  great 
many  disputes  and  unsettled  questions  about  practically  every  fill 
and  curve  and  tunnel  that  they  had  on  the  railroad. 


12 


Olney:   To  settle  these  things,  they  naturally  took  geologists  to  go  out 

and  actually  make  an  inspection  of  the  rock  and  the  fill,  and  take 
measurements,  samples,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.   Since  there 
were  no  trains  running  on  the  line,  and  tracks  were  down,  they  used 
to  hitch  a  locomotive  to  the  president  of  the  railroad's  private 
car,  and  they'd  all  go  snorting  up  the  line  until  they  got  to  the 
place  in  question.   Then  the  geologists  would  get  out  with  their 
little  hammers  and  knock  a  few  rocks  off  and  take  samples,  and  do 
a  little  surveying,  or  something  of  this  nature.   Father  took  my 
brother  and  me  on  those  trips  many  times. 

Fry:     You  got  to  go  along! 

Olney:   Oh,  yes.   Sometimes  we  could  ride  in  the  cab  of  the  locomotive.   One 
time  we  borrowed  the  private  car,  and  I  guess  we  were  gone  for  maybe 
eight  or  ten  days.  We  went  up  to  Blairsden,  where  the  Feather  River 
Inn  now  is.   The  car  was  put  on  a  siding  there,  and  we  went  on  a 
fishing  trip  up  to  Gold  Lake.   I  have  pictures  of  that,  with  my 
father,  grandfather,  brother,  all  in  this  buckboard  that  we  took  up 
to  Gold  Lake.   Then  we  came  down  from  the  lake  and  the  railroad 
would  drop  our  car  down  through  the  Feather  River  Canyon,  and  put 
our  car  off  on  a  siding  where  we  could  go  fishing  for  a  day  or  so 
at  a  time.   There  was  no  highway  or  road  in  the  Feather  River  Canyon 
at  that  time,  only  the  railroad.   Since  the  railroad  wasn't  being 
used,  there  was  nobody.   The  fishing  was  simply  superb. 

So  I  remember  my  father's  being  counsel,  all  right,  for  the 
Western  Pacific. 

Fry:     There  goes  my  image  of  you  as  a  rugged  third-  or  fourth-generation 
back-packer.   [laughter] 

Olney:   The  president's  car  was  the  most  luxurious  form  of  travel  I've  ever 
seen.  I've  never  experienced  anything  like  it.  That  was  a  great 
thing . 

In  those  days,  winter  sports  weren't  very  popular  that  I  know  of, 
but  Father  got  interested  in  them,  and  so  we  took  the  private  car 
and  got  the  Southern  Pacific  to  take  it  up  to  Truckee.  They  left 
us  off  on  the  siding  up  at  Truckee  one  winter,  and  we  lived  in  this 
car  and  went  sleighing  and  skiing  and  tobogganing,  and  things  like 
that.  An  elegant  time.   We  would  come  back  and  live  in  the  car. 
It  had  a  cook,  and  a  porter  to  handle  all  the  berths.   [laughter] 

Not  all  our  trips  were  in  the  private  car.  Most  of  the  one-day 
trips  were  in  a  caboose.  This  was  fun  too  because  we  could  climb 
up  to  the  little  house  on  top  and  look  out  the  windows  ahead  over 
the  oiler  and  locomotive  and  see  where  we  were  going.  The  caboose 
was  chummy  too,  but  it  didn't  really  rate  with  John  and  me  because 
it  didn't  have  any  such  food  as  we  were  given  on  the  private  car. 


13 


Fry:     Could  I  ask  you  a  serious  question  about  Western  Pacific?   If 

Western  Pacific  was  that  late,  1910,  that  was  when  the  railroad 
commission  was  established,  I  believe,  in  1911.   Apparently  the 
Western  Pacific  doesn't  share  in  the  inglorious  past  of  Southern 
Pacific  in  the  political  history  of  our  state.  Is  that  right? 

Olney:   They  were  competitors,  I  would  say. 
Fry:     So  it  didn't  control  the  legislature? 

Olney:   Oh,  no!   It  had  nothing  to  do  with  that.   The  Western  Pacific  was 
never  a  political  power  like  the  Southern  Pacific. 

Fry:     I've  noticed  in  the  memorial*  that  there  was  a  sentence  or  two  by 
one  of  the  men  who  wrote  the  memorial  about  your  dad  in  which  he 
mentioned  "private  interests,"  and  I  didn't  know  what  this  meant. 
I  suppose  he  was  talking  about  the  fact  that  your  dad,  before  he 
went  on  the  court,  had  been  a  lawyer  for  Western  Pacific.   The 
memorial  said  that  his  association  with  private  interests  did  not 
make  any  difference,  and  that  your  dad  was  a  very  outspoken  man 
who  always  adhered  to  what  he  thought  was  right,  regardless  of  his 
associations. 

Olney:   Well,  I  think  what  they  were  referring  to  was  not  just  the  Western 

Pacific,  but  that  my  father  had  always  represented  business  interests 
of  one  kind  or  another.   Western  Pacific  was  one,  but  he  represented 
the  Great  Western  Power  Company,  and  then  he  was  not  infrequently 
special  counsel  for  Pacific  Gas  and  Electric  Company,  and  for 
Southern  California  Edison  in  their  water  case,  and  things  like  that. 
The  firm  also  represented  a  great  many  steamship  companies;  they  had 
an  admiralty  section  in  the  firm.  They  were  attorneys  for  the  Kern 
County  Land  Company,  and  Shell  Oil  Company,  and  companies  like  that. 

Fry:     I  see.   Then  the  point  is  well  taken,  that  once  he  was  on  the  bench 
he  was  able  to  see  the  whole  picture,  not  just  the  successful 
business  interests. 

Olney:  He  was  appointed  to  the  state  supreme  court  as  associate  justice 
by  Governor  Stephens,  due  to  the  resignation  of  Judge  Sloss.  He 
enjoyed  his  work  on  the  court  very  much.  I  was  old  enough  at  that 


*See  Eustace  Cullinan  and  Hon.  Curtis  D.  Wilbur,  "Warren  Olney, 
Jr.  Memorial"  in  the  Warren  Olney,  Jr.  papers  in  The  Bancroft 
Library . 


14 


Olney:    time  to  be  driving  a  car,  and  Father  had  a  car.   It  was  a  great  big 
seven-passenger  Cole  Aero  Eight.   Several  times  when  the  court  would 
meet  in  Los  Angeles  I  drove  him  down  in  that  buggy. 

I  can  recall  one  occasion  when  the  San  Diego  Bar  Association  had 
a  lunch  for  the  supreme  court,  and  we  drove  most  of  the  court  down 
in  the  Cole  Aero  Eight.   I  drove  them  down,  but  Father  liked  to 
drive,  and  coming  home  he  did  the  driving.  Along  about  Orange, 
somewhere  in  Orange  County,  the  siren  blew  behind  us,  and  the  cop 
came  alongside,  and  pinched  nearly  the  whole  state  supreme  court, 
[laughter]   For  speeding. 

Those  judges  had  to  run  for  office,  you  know.   Judge  Frank 
Kerrigan  was  sitting  on  the  court  pro-tern  at  that  time.   He  was 
going  to  have  to  run  in  six  or  seven  weeks,  or  something  like  that, 
and  he  was  very  concerned  when  this  whistle  blew.   I  remember  his 
saying,  "Let  me  handle  this,  boys!" 

When  the  car  stopped,  out  he  gets.   He  had  his  card,  and  he 
introduced  himself  to  the  officer  and  said,  "I'm  Judge  Kerrigan, 
associate  justice  of  the  state  supreme  court."  The  officer  looked 
very  skeptical  at  him,  so  he  had  these  others  get  out,  and  he 
introduced  them,  "Justice  So-and-So,  and  So-and-So."  Each  pre 
sented  his  card.   Finally  he  got  down  to  Angelotti,  who  was  the 
chief  justice,  and  by  this  time  the  cop's  chin  was  down  to  his 
waist.  He  didn't  know  what  to  do.  He  finally  scratched  his  head, 
shut  up  his  book,  and  said,  "Well,  just  don't  do  it  again." 
[laughter]   He  got  on  his  motorcycle  and  drove  off. 

Judge  Angelotti  would  never  let  me  forget  that  incident. 
"Warren,"  he  said,  "you  lost  the  chance  of  a  lifetime — you  just 
lost  it."   I  said,  "What  do  you  mean?"  He  said,  "You  had  your 
camera  right  with  you.  You  should  have  had  that  officer  line  us 
all  up  there  in  front  of  the  car,  and  taken  a  picture!"   [laughter] 

Fry:  That  would  have  set  you  up  for  life. 

Olney:  Yes.   I'd  have  done  well  on  the  supreme  court.   [laughter] 

Fry:  I'll  bet  that's  a  big  family  story  in  that  officer's  family  too. 

Olney:  Yes.   I'll  bet  it  is. 

Fry:     Could  I  back  up  a  minute?  When  your  dad  was  appointed  to  the  Board 
of  Regents,  was  that  an  appointment  by  Hiram  Johnson? 

Olney:   He  was  elected  president  of  the  alumni  association  and  was  a  regent 
ex  officio. 


15 


Fry:     I  think  that  was  later,  wasn't  it?  At  that  time  the  president  of 
the  alums  was  not — 

Olney:  He  was  counsel  for  the  regents.   I  don't  think  he  was  appointed — 

Fry:  He  was  not  on  the  board,  but  he  was  counsel? 

Olney:  Yes.   He  was  the  lawyer  for  the  regents. 

Fry:  That  wasn't  anything  Hiram  Johnson  would  have  done,  then? 

Olney:  No.   The  regents  picked  their  own  lawyer. 

Fry:  Then  later  on  he  was  a  member  of  the  regents  ex  of f icio? 

Olney :  Yes . 

Political  Matters 

Fry:     Was  he  close  to  Hiram  Johnson,  would  you  say? 

Olney:   Yes,  he  was.   Father  was  very  much  interested,  and  so  was  my  grand 
father,  in  the  graft  prosecutions  in  San  Francisco  in  1908,  or  along 
in  there,  which  was  when  Hiram  Johnson  got  his  start.   (You  know 
Johnson  was  assisting  [Francis]  Heney  [assistant  district  attorney 
of  San  Francisco]  in  that  prosecution.  Heney  was  shot  at  the  trial, 
and  Hiram  Johnson  took  over.)  My  father  and  Johnson  became  good 
friends.   Then  Johnson  had  a  lieutenant  governor,  John  Eshleman, 
and  Father  was  a  very  good  friend  of  Eshleman's,   a  very  good  friend 
of  his  indeed.   Eshleman  became  the  first  chairman  of  the  railroad 
commission. 

I  remember  Hiram  Johnson  coming  to  our  house  for  lunch  one  time, 
an  occasion  when  they  were  having  some  problem  with  the  deaf  school 
that's  up  there  on  Warring  Street,  between  Dwight  and  Derby  [in 
Berkeley].   It  was  a  school  for  the  deaf,  dumb,  and  blind  at  that 
time.   The  president  of  the  school  was  a  Dr.  Wilkinson.   He  was 
the  father  of  Mrs.  Maude  Richardson,  Leon  Richardson's  wife. 

There  were  some  kind  of  charges  that  were  brought  against  Dr. 
Wilkinson  that  required  an  inquiry  that  brought  the  governor  to 
Berkeley.   The  whole  thing  was  explored.   It  was  without  any  basis, 
as  I  recall,  but  I  remember  Johnson  being  at  the  house,  and  my 
father  and  the  governor  being  very  friendly  indeed. 


16 


Olney:   After  World  War  I,  when  the  League  of  Nations  was  proposed  by 

Woodrow  Wilson,  my  father  and  grandfather  believed  that  that  was 
the  only  hope  we  had  of  avoiding  another  war  like  World  War  I. 
They  were  very  much  interested  in  supporting  the  League  and  did 
everything  they  could,  made  speeches  and  gave  money  and  whatnot. 

Hiram  Johnson,  of  course,  opposed  the  League.   He  was  just  as 
bitter  as  could  be.   Johnson  was  always  a  very  bitter  kind  of  man. 
You're  either  for  him  or  agin1  him,  in  his  mind,  and  if  you  weren't 
supporting  him  and  were  supporting  the  League,  why,  he  just  had  no 
use  for  you.  My  father  supported  Herbert  Hoover,  because  of  this 
League  issue,  when  he  ran  for  the  Senate  against  Johnson  and  was 
defeated. 

Fry:     When  Hoover  ran  against  Johnson? 

Olney:    Sure,  Hoover  ran  against  Johnson  one  time  and  was  beaten,  before  he 
was  president.   It  was  in  the  primaries  he  ran,  the  Republican 
primary,  I  think. 

Fry:     That  must  have  been  the  final  straw,  at  any  rate. 

Olney:   Yes.  My  father  and  Johnson  were  never  able  to  make  up  this 
difference  they'd  had. 

Fry:     During  all  this,  did  Hiram  Johnson  come  to  your  house  more  than 
once? 

Olney:   Well,  I  remember  once  distinctly.   I'm  not  sure  whether  he  came  more 
than  once.   I  think  he  did,  though. 

Fry:     Would  you  rate  your  father  as  a  progressive  in  a  Hiram  Johnson 
sense? 

Olney:   Well,  my  father  started  out  being  a  Democrat.   I  know  he  was  a 

delegate  to  the  Democratic  state  convention  that  endorsed  William 
Jennings  Bryan  when  he  was  running  against  McKinley.  My  mother 
was  a  Republican  and  my  father  was  a  Democrat.  My  mother  acquired 
a  very  large,  extraordinarily  ugly  tomcat,  whom  she  named  Bryan, 
[laughter] 

Father  was  very  interested  in  supporting  Hiram  Johnson,  and  so 
was  my  grandfather,  and  they  also  were  very  keen  in  supporting 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  although  my  grandfather  had  been  very  much 
opposed  to  McKinley  because  of  his  involvement  in  the  Philippines. 
Grandfather  thought  our  sending  troops  to  the  Philippines  to 
suppress  the  native  insurrection  was  a  ghastly  mistake.   He  had 
the  same  feeling  about  our  involvement  in  the  Philippines  that 


17 


Olney:   many  people  have  about  the  Vietnam  War.   He  just  thought  that  was 
morally  indefensible,  as  well  as  being  politically  unsound.   He 
thought  we  would  regret  that  we  ever  got  involved  in  that.   Grand 
father  put  an  article  in  the  Oakland  newspaper  that  is  about  as 
strong  a  denunciation  of  our  national  conduct  as  I  have  ever  read. 
I  still  have  a  copy  of  it.   But  Roosevelt,  on  the  other  hand,  they 
liked  very  much  even  though  he  was  a  big  navy  man,  and  seemed 
inclined  to  get  us  involved  everywhere. 

Grandfather  and  Father  had  a  hard  time  knowing  from  one  election 
to  the  next  just  who  they  were  going  to  support.   They  changed  their 
views  many  times  about  people  and  about  issues.   But  I  would  describe 
both  of  them  as  being  very  progressive  for  their  day.   Neither  of 
them  were  opposed  to  change,  and  both  of  them  realized  that  the 
regime,  and  the  system  under  which  they  were  living,  was  anything 
but  perfect;  it  needed  improvement. 

Fry:     Did  they  support  Wilson  in  1912  against  Taft? 

Olney:   No,  they  supported  Roosevelt.   I  remember  that.   That's  the  first 
election  I  can  remember  anything  about .   I  do  not  believe  either 
of  them  ever  supported  Wilson.  I  think  they  harbored  a  great  dis 
trust  of  the  man. 

In  the  1916  election — that,  of  course,  is  the  one  in  which 
Charles  Evans  Hughes  came  out  here  to  California  and  made  the 
mistake  of  giving  Johnson  the  brush-off.   [laughter]   But  we 
weren't  in  California  at  the  time  of  the  election.  My  parents 
took  my  brother  and  me  on  a  three-months'  tour  of  the  East.   It 
was  a  purely  educational  sight-seeing  tour  for  us  boys.  We  were 
in  Boston  at  the  time  of  the  election,  and  witnessed  the  torch 
parade.   I  guess  it  was  the  last  political  parade  with  torches 
that  they  ever  had  in  Boston.   It  was  a  big  one,  celebrating 
Hughes'  election.   Then  we  woke  up  the  next  morning  to  find  our 
state  had  beat  him.   I  don't  know  which  side  they  were  on  at  that 
time. 

Both  my  father  and  grandfather  felt  that  our  involvement  in 
World  War  I  was  inevitable.  We  simply  could  not  afford  to  see 
the  Allies  defeated.   They  never  supported  Wilson  on  any  slogan 
that  he  kept  us  out  of  war.   But  whether  they  voted  for  Hughes  or 


18 


Olney: 


Fry: 


Olney: 


Fry: 


Olney : 
Fry: 
Olney : 


not,  I  don't  know.   I  think  they  might  have.  My  father  was  probably 
glad  he  was  in  the  East,  and  didn't  have  to  vote,  unless  it  was  on 
an  absentee  ballot,  because  he  would  have  been  torn  both  ways. 

If  your  father  was  a  delegate  to  the  Democratic  state  convention 
when  Bryan  was  running,  did  he  ever  get  that  active  in  partisan 
politics  again  in  the  state? 


I  don't  think  so. 
other  convention. 


He  was  never  a  delegate,  that  I  know  of,  to  any 


He  was  more  active,  though,  than  that  fact  would  suggest.  His 
profession,  and  his  work,  and  his  clients  brought  him  into  contact 
with  people  in  public  office  and  with  people  who  were  supporting 
and  responsible  for  candidates,  to  a  great  extent,  and  he  was  always 
very  concerned  about  candidates,  opposing  some  and  supporting  others. 
He  would  do  this  privately,  and  it  was  effective,  that  way. 

I  understand  that  there  was  a  complaint  on  the  part  of  Southern 
California  party  leaders  that  a  great  deal  of  the  money  traditionally 
came  from  a  group  of  men  in  San  Francisco  that  wielded  influence 
because  they  could  choose  their  own  candidates  of  either  party  and 
work  up  a  good  enough  campaign  fund  that  they  could  help  them  get 
elected. 

I  think  that  was  true. 

Yes .  Maybe  you  can  give  us  information  on  who  these  people  were? 

No.   I  can't. 


Spring  Valley  Water  Company 


Olney:   You  were  wondering  about  my  father's  clients.   There  was  an  important 
one  that  I'd  forgotten  to  mention  and  that's  the  Spring  Valley  Water 
Company.   The  Spring  Valley  Water  Company,  and  its  precedessor,  The 
Spring  Valley  Water  Works,  was  a  privately  owned  corporation  which 
had  been  in  the  business  of  supplying  water  for  domestic  and  indus 
trial  use  to  San  Francisco  since  the  1850s.   It  had  built  and  owned 
all  of  the  reservoirs  and  water  pipes  for  delivering  water  to  the 
city  and  also  owned  all  the  possible  sources  of  water  for  the  city 
which  might  be  developed  in  San  Mateo  and  Alameda  counties.   It  had 
a  water  monopoly  in  the  city  of  San  Francisco. 


19 


Olney:   There  was,  understandably,  constant  friction  between  the  water 

company  and  the  city  over  the  water  company's  rates  which  were  set 
by  the  city's  board  of  supervisors.   There  had  been  a  number  of 
proposals  over  the  years  for  the  city  to  build  its  own  water  system 
with  sources  in  the  Eel  River,  the  Sacramento,  Lake  Tahoe,  or  one 
or  another  of  the  Sierra  rivers.   The  Tuolumne  River,  with  a 
reservoir  to  be  built  in  Hetch  Hetchy  Valley,  was  regarded  as  the 
most  feasible  of  these  proposals. 

The  Spring  Valley  Water  Company  had  long  been  one  of  Mr.  E.J. 
McCutchen's  clients,  but  after  Father  and  Mr.  McCutchen  became 
partners  Father  did  an  increasing  amount  of  work  for  Spring  Valley 
and  a  number  of  its  officers.   The  matter  is  of  some  interest  here 
because  my  father  and  grandfather  were  on  opposite  sides  of  this 
very  important  and  explosive  issue.   Spring  Valley  was  the  principal 
opponent  of  the  city's  plan  to  dam  Hetch  Hetchy  and  bring  its  water 
to  San  Francisco  and  my  father's  firm  was  the  company's  legal  coun 
sel.   My  grandfather,  on  the  other  hand,  was  very  active  in  organ 
izing  support  for  the  Hetch  Hetchy  project.   The  following  is  a 
brief  statement  of  the  background  of  the  controversy: 

In  the  fall  of  1908,  in  order  that  San  Francisco  might  proceed 
with  its  Hetch  Hetchy  plans,  a  joint  resolution  had  been  introduced 
in  Congress  providing  for  the  exchange  of  lands  between  the  city 
and  the  federal  government  lying  within  Yosemite  National  Park. 
This  was  a  requirement  of  the  permit  the  city  had  received  from  the 
Secretary  of  the  Interior.  The  city  had  secured  options  to  purchase 
a  number  of  privately  owned  tracts  within  Yosemite  National  Park 
boundaries  and  stood  ready  to  exchange  them,  acre  for  acre,  for  the 
government's  land  on  the  floor  of  Hetch  Hetchy  Valley.  By  the  trade 
the  city  would  have  its  ownership  of  land  in  the  national  park 
confined  to  the  floor  of  Hetch  Hetchy,  while  the  government  would 
acquire  all  the  privately  held  land  outside  Hetch  Hetchy. 

Dr.  A.H.  Giannini,  who  was  chairman  of  the  Supervisors'  Committee 
on  Public  Works,  and  Marsden  Manson,  the  city  engineer,  were  sent  to 
Washington  to  appear  before  the  Public  Lands  Committees.   They  were 
assured  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  securing  the  passage  of  the 
joint  resolution  to  effect  this  land  exchange. 

The  hearing  before  the  House  committee  opened  with  City  Engineer 
Manson  presenting  the  city's  petition  followed  by  a  statement  from 
Dr.  Giannini.   Secretary  of  the  Interior  Garfield  gave  his  reasons 
for  granting  the  permit  to  the  City  of  San  Francisco.   At  this 
point  a  hurricane  of  protest  blew  up.   Letters  and  telegrams  were 
received  from  individuals  and  conservation  organizations  from  all 
over  the  country  protesting  the  invasion  of  a  national  park  for 
water  and  power  development  and  the  loss  of  Hetch  Hetchy  Valley  by 


20 

Olney:   flooding.   The  leaders  in  this  well-organized  blitz  of  protest  were 
mostly  Sierra  Club  members.   They  included  John  Muir,  William  E. 
Colby,  C.T.  Parsons,  J.N.  Le  Conte,  and  William  F.  Bade1.   These  were 
among  my  grandfather's  closest  and  most  valued  friends. 

The  city  representatives  did  not  know  who  had  stirred  up  the 
storm  of  opposition  at  the  hearing,  although  they  seem  to  have 
suspected  the  Spring  Valley  Water  Company,  since  that  company  had 
opposed  the  Hetch  Hetchy  project  from  the  beginning. 

The  tremendous  protest  caused  an  adjournment  of  the  hearings. 
A  day  or  so  later  the  committee  held  an  executive  session  and 
immediately  afterwards  Dr.  Giannini  reported  to  Mayor  Taylor  that 
while  the  city's  representatives  were  not  invited,  they  had  noticed 
on  passing  through  the  hall  that  the  meeting  was  being  held  and 
that  Mr.  E.J.  McCutchen,  attorney  for  the  Spring  Valley  Water 
Company  (and  my  father's  partner),  had  appeared  without  announce 
ment  or  notice  and  was  addressing  the  committee,  presenting  legal 
objections  and  opposing  the  resolution  of  exchange » 

Dr.  Giannini  called  for  reinforcements  for  the  city  and  Mayor 
Taylor  immediately  responded  by  sending  to  Washington  a  five-man 
committee  composed  of  Warren  Olney,  Sr.,  ex-Mayor  of  Oakland; 
James  D.  Phelan,  ex-Mayor  of  San  Francisco;  City  Attorney  Percy  V. 
Long;  Walter  McArthur,  editor  of  Coast  Seaman's  Journal;  and  J.D. 
Galloway ,  C . E . 

In  January,  1909,  the  hearings  were  reconvened.  Again  the 
committee  was  deluged  with  letters  and  telegrams  from  all  parts  of 
the  country  and  Mr.  McCutchen  was  also  on  the  ground  representing 
the  Spring  Valley  Water  Company.   He  charged  that  the  city's  real 
object  in  seeking  the  Hetch  Hetchy  permit  was  to  use  it  as  a  club 
to  force  Spring  Valley  to  sell  its  system  to  the  city  at  the  city's 
own  price.   A  strange  alliance  was  in  evidence  between  the  Sierra 
Club  and  other  conservationists  and  the  Spring  Valley  Water  Company. 
The  effect  of  their  joint  efforts  was  to  prevent  the  City  of  San 
Francisco  from  developing  a  municipally  owned  water  system. 

The  protests  were  too  much.   The  city  representatives  could  see 
there  was  no  hope  and  they  requested  that  the  resolution  be  with 
drawn  from  further  consideration  and  returned  home.* 


*My  source  for  the  above  statements:  Taylor,  Ray  W.,  Hetch  Hetchy, 
The  Story  of  San  Francisco's  Struggle  to  Provide  a  Water  System 
for  Her  Future  Needs,  Orozco,  San  Francisco,  1926. 


21 


Olney:   Of  course,  this  was  not  the  end.   The  city  continued  its  fight  for 
Hetch  Hetchy.   Grandfather  became  incensed  at  his  old  Sierra  Club 
friends  who  had  organized  the  protest  against  the  resolution  in 
Congress.   He  was  convinced  that  they  had  permitted  themselves  and 
the  club  to  be  used  as  a  front  by  the  Spring  Valley  Water  Company 
in  its  determination  to  keep  San  Francisco  from  owning  its  own  water 
supply.   He  led  nearly  half  the  membership  in  resignation  from  the 
club  in  protest  against  the  club's  abetting  the  machinations  of 
Spring  Valley.   The  conservation  issue  he  regarded  as  a  fake  and 
mere  smoke  screen  for  the  water  company's  selfish  purposes.* 

I  was  much  too  young  to  know  anything  about  the  matters  I  have 
just  recited,  but  this  fight  went  on  for  years,  the  city  finally 
winning  out  when  the  Raker  Act  was  signed  into  law  by  President 
Woodrow  Wilson  in  1913.   But  I  was  old  enough  at  this  time  to 
discover,  along  with  all  of  Grandfather's  other  grandchildren,  that 
the  split  of  opinion  in  our  family  about  something  called  "Hetch 
Hetchy"  was  so  great  and  was  such  a  sore  subject  that  it  must  not 
be  mentioned  in  Grandfather's  house. 

Nevertheless  there  was  no  hint  of  estrangement  between  my  grand 
father  and  father  over  Hetch  Hetchy  or  over  the  part  the  Sierra  Club 
was  playing  and  I  think  this  throws  a  revealing  light  on  both  these 
men.   Their  attitudes  toward  one  another  always  evidenced  the 
warmest  affection  and  the  greatest  respect  whatever  their  differences 
may  have  been  about  Hetch  Hetchy. 

Fry:     How  did  your  father  feel  personally  about  Hetch  Hetchy? 

Olney:   He  felt  that  Hetch  Hetchy  should  not  have  been  flooded.   He  felt 
that  conservation-wise  it  was  going  to  be  needed.   Grandfather 
didn't.   Also,  my  father  did  not  have  the  same  deep  antagonism  to 
all  private  water  companies  that  my  grandfather  did.   Grandfather 
just  thought  private  water  companies  were  an  abomination,  that  by 
the  very  nature  of  water — water  was  so  necessary — no  community 
ought  ever  to  have  its  water  supply  in  the  hands  of  any  private 
concern,  where  they  could  tell  the  community  what  they  had  to  pay 
for  water.   He  thought  that  was  completely  wrong. 

Fry:     You  mentioned  to  me,  before  we  turned  the  tape  recorder  on,  about 
your  grandfather's  experiences  when  he  ran  for  mayor  of  Oakland. 


See  Appendix  A. 


22 


Olney:   Yes.   This  is  what  soured  him  on  water  companies — old  man  [William] 
Dingee  of  the  Oakland  Water  Company  and  later  the  Contra  Costa  Water 
Company  and  the  Peoples  Water  Company.   In  1902  Grandfather  was 
elected  mayor  of  Oakland  on  the  water  issue.   I  still  have  one  of 
his  campaign  addresses  which  explains  his  view  on  water  companies. 
He  just  lumped  together  Spring  Valley  and  every  other  privately  owned 
water  company  in  the  state. 

Fry:     You  said  the  board  of  supervisors  had  the  right  to  set  the  rates, 
and  this  led  to  a  great  deal  of  bribery. 

Olney:   Yes.  Yes.   In  Oakland  it  surely  did  and,  I  believe,  in  San  Francisco 
also. 

Fry:     Who  was  head  of  Spring  Valley  Water  Company?  Was  it  anyone  impor 
tant?  Groping  back  in  my  memory  here  I  connect  this  with  something. 

Olney:   Well,  I'm  wondering  if  it  wasn't  Bourn.   There  was  a  man  named 

Bourn;  Father  was  his  counsel  too.   The  Spring  Valley  Water  Company 
was  reorgznized  more  than  once  and  it  had  several  presidents  over 
the  years.   I  remember  the  names  of  A.H.  Payson  and  S.P.  Eastman 
as  having  been  Spring  Valley  presidents  at  one  time  or  another,  but 
the  only  one  I  can  remember  as  a  person  was  W.B.  Bourn  (known  in 
mining  circles  as  Billy  Bourn) . 

He  was  the  owner  of  the  fabulously  rich  Idaho-Maryland  Mine  in 
Grass  Valley.   In  1909,  and  I  suppose  for  some  years  before  and 
after,  Mr.  Bourn  was  president  of  the  Spring  Valley  Water  Company 
and  was  also,  I  believe,  its  principal  stockholder.   He  built  a 
magnificent  brick  mansion  surrounded  by  water  company  property  in 
San  Mateo  County  which  he  named  Faloli.   The  mansion  still  stands 
in  the  woods,  but  I  think  it  is  now  owned  by  the  City  of  San 
Francisco. 

Years  later — in  the  1920s — Mr.  Bourn  bought  the  Lakes  of 
Killarney  in  Ireland,  including  the  castles  and  villas  on  the 
estate.   For  some  years  he  and  Mrs.  Bourn  resided  there  raising 
horses.   Eventually  he  made  a  gift  of  the  entire  estate  to  the 
National  Trust  and  now  it  is  publicly  owned. 

The  only  reason  I  remember  Mr.  Bourn  is  because  of  his  automobile. 
About  1909  or  1910,  when  I  was  only  five  or  six  years  old,  and  while 
he  was  president  of  Spring  Valley  and  my  father  was  counsel  for  the 


23 


Olney:   company,  Mr.  Bourn  owned  a  seven-passenger  Fierce-Arrow  touring  car 
with  a  chauffeur.   He  loaned  the  "machine,"  as  it  was  usually  called 
in  those  days,  and  the  chauffeur  to  my  father  to  make  an  inspection 
of  the  company's  works  in  the  Pleasanton-Sunol  area  accompanied  by 
his  family. 

We  were  living  in  Berkeley  at  the  time  and  my  recollection  is 
that  we  took  the  streetcar  to  First  and  Broadway  where  we  met  the 
Fierce-Arrow  and  its  driver  as  they  got  off  what  was  known  as  the 
"Creek  Ferry" — the  only  ferry  capable  of  carrying  horses,  wagons, 
and  automobiles. 

This,  I  believe,  was  my  first  ride  in  an  automobile.  My  mother 
wore  a  large  hat  with  a  heavy  veil  to  keep  it  on.  My  father  wore  a 
cap  and  both  parents  wore  dusters  and  really  needed  them,  there 
being  no  paved  road.  My  brother  and  I  had  nothing  extra  except  the 
tremendous  thrill  of  the  automobile  ride. 

We  traversed  Dublin  Canyon  and  emerged  onto  the  flat  land  just 
northwest  of  Pleasanton.   Here  we  inspected  a  large  artisian  well 
and  some  underground  percolation  galleries  that  Spring  Valley  had 
developed.   Then  we  drove  south  through  Pleasanton  on  our  way  to 
Sunol.   Several  miles  out  of  town  our  road  went  underneath  the 
railroad  tracks  followed  by  a  sharp  turn  to  the  left.   As  we 
rounded  the  turn,  we  suddenly  encountered  a  lady  in  a  buggy  going 
the  opposite  direction.   Her  horse  shied  and  stood  on  his  hind 
legs,  overturning  the  buggy  and  throwing  the  lady  to  the  ground. 
The  chauffeur  jammed  on  the  brakes  and  Father  leaped  from  the  car 
and  seized  the  horse's  bridle.  We  all  got  out  to  pick  up  the 
pieces.   The  young  lady  did  not  seem  to  be  badly  damaged,  although 
the  experience  certainly  did  not  freshen  her  up.  We  learned  that 
her  home  was  less  than  a  mile  away,  so  the  buggy  was  righted  and 
we  took  her  home.   I  think  she  rode  in  the  Fierce-Arrow  and  Father 
drove  her  horse  and  buggy. 

After  this  harrowing  experience,  we  went  on  to  the  Water  Temple 
at  Sunol.   Here  we  were  taken  underground  once  more  into  the  per 
colation  galleries  and  then  to  watch  the  mixing  of  waters  from  many 
sources  in  the  temple  as  they  started  their  long  trip  through  the 
Spring  Valley  pipes  to  the  San  Andreas  Reservoir  and   San  Francisco. 

On  the  water  company  property  and  about  a  half  a  mile  from  the 
Water  Temple  was  an  old  ranch  house  which  the  company  kept  staffed 
for  the  use  of  visitors.  We  had  limitless  quantities  of  fried 
chicken  prepared  by  a  Chinese  cook,  followed  by  ice-cold  water 
melons.  While  our  elders  stayed  in  the  house  and,  I  suppose, 
talked  about  business,  my  brother  John  and  I  climbed  trees  and 
played  on  the  expansive  lawns  around  the  house. 


24 


Olney:   From  here  on  my  memory  of  that  day  grows  dim.   It  seems  probable 

that  we  went  up  Alameda  Creek  to  where  the  Calaveras  dam  was  being 
built — a  distance  of  about  three  or  four  miles — but  I  cannot  say 
that  I  remember  this.   Indeed,  I  cannot  remember  how  we  got  home, 
although  I  think  it  was  through  Niles  Canyon.   (The  canyon  was 
familiar  to  John  and  me  because  we  had  been  through  it  several 
times  in  the  Western  Pacific  private  car.)   The  vagueness  of  my 
memory  from  this  point  on  is  due,  I  suspect,  to  my  being  asleep. 
The  excitement  of  that  first  automobile  ride,  the  thrill  of  all 
the  pouring  waters,  the  rearing  horse  and  overturning  buggy,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  fried  chicken  and  watermelon,  was  more  than 
enough,  I  am  sure,  to  exhaust  a  five-  or  six-year-old  boy.   This 
is,  of  course,  why  I  remember  Mr.  Bourn's  presidency  of  the  Spring 
Valley  Water  Company. 

Fry:     At  any  rate,  Bourn  was  very  close  to  your  father? 

Olney:   Yes.  My  father  represented  Bourn  on  many  of  his  personal  matters 
and  occasionally  but  not  regularly  on  his  mining  interests.   I 
remember  when  the  Argonaut  mine  had  that  terrible  fire  at  Jackson 
they  got  into  a  lot  of  litigation  over  that,  and  Father  represented 
the  Argonaut.  I  am  not  sure,  however,  that  Mr.  Bourn  had  any 
interest  in  the  Argonaut. 

Fry:     So  your  father  was  able  to  be  counsel  and  attorney  for  these 

interests,  but  at  the  same  time,  on  public  issues  he  seemed  to 
be  on  the  side  of  general  public  interest. 

Olney:   Oh,  yes.  He  was.  He  never  let  the  representation  of  his  clients 
determine  his  views  on  public  issues . 

Fry:     That's  what  that  sentence  meant,  then,  in  his  memorial. 


Associate  Justice,  California  Supreme  Court 


Fry:     Are  you  ready  to  go  on  to  his  period  as  associate  justice? 

Olney:   Sure.  I  can  take  you  over  that  very  briefly,  because  I  can  only 

add  to  what  I  already  said.   Father  was  appointed  associate  justice 
of  the  supreme  court  of  California  on  March  1,  1919  by  Governor 
Stephens  to  fill  the  vacancy  caused  by  the  resignation  of  Justice 
Sloss.   In  November  1920  he  was  elected  without  opposition  for  a 
new  term.   In  July  1921  he  resigned  to  re-enter  private  practice. 
I  know  that  he  enjoyed  his  work  very  much  on  the  court;  that  there 
were  times  later  on  when  he  would  read  decisions  of  the  court  and 


25 


Olney:   wish  he  was  still  on  there,  because  he  didn't  always  agree  with 
them,  but  he  left  simply  because  he  couldn't  live  on  his  salary. 
At  that  time  associate  justices  got  paid  $8,000  a  year.   He  had 
three  children  that  he  was  trying  to  educate.   He  thought  we  were 
expensive!   [laughter] 

That  was  just  about  the  time  you  three  kids  were  going  to  college, 
wasn't  it? 

Yes.   Then,  there  was  another  thing  that  used  to  annoy  him  very 
much.   There  was  then  a  provision  in  the  state  constitution  that 
supreme  court  justices  could  not  be  paid  unless  they  submitted 
affidavits  that  none  of  the  court's  cases  had  been  pending  more 
than  ninety  days,  or  something  like  that.   There  was  one  member 
of  the  court  in  particular  who  was  very  dilatory,  and  who  would 
have  an  awful  time  making  up  his  mind,  and  he'd  get  way  behind, 
and  it  meant  that  none  of  the  justices  could  get  paid.   Sometimes 
they  were  well  over  a  year  in  arrears  in  their  pay.   They  had  to 
finance  this  with  loans  from  the  bank,  which  Father  felt  was  a 
pretty  tough  way  of  trying  to  finance  himself  and  his  family  on 
such  a  low  salary. 

Yes,  you'd  lose  part  of  your  salary  right  there  in  the  interest 
rates.  Was  this  set  by  the  legislature  at  that  time? 

It  was  in  the  constitution.   It  got  in  there,  I  think,  on  an 
initiative  along  about  1911  with  many  of  these  other  attempts  at 
reform. 

As  an  effort  at  court  reform. 
Something  like  that.   [laughter] 

Well,  I  noticed  the  memorial  says  that  shortly  after  your  father 
resigned,  they  were  able  to  get  the  remuneration  increased. 

Well,  that  might  be  because  he  resigned!   [laughter] 
Yes,  maybe  that's  what  he  accomplished. 

What  department  did  he  have?  Were  the  departments  divided  up 
into  types  of  cases  then? 

In  the  court?  No. 

There's  a  note  here  that  he  was  the  bar  association  president  at 
some  time.   Do  you  know  anything  about  that? 


26 


Olney:   Yes.   He  was  president  of  the  San  Francisco  Bar  Association. 
Fry:     Were  there  any  particular  issues  that  he  became  involved  with? 

Olney:   My  grandfather  had  been  president  of  it,  too,  before  that.   No,  I 
don't  know  of  any  issues. 

Fry:     All  right. 


Service  on  the  Draft  Board 


Fry:     The  World  War  I  experience  that  he'd  had  on  the  draft  board  must 
have  been  a  difficult  one  for  him. 

Olney:   Yes,  that  was.   It  was  a  review  board  that  he  was  on. 

Fry:     My  notes  say  that  he  was  a  member  of  the  State  Registration  Bureau, 
in  charge  of  registration  for  the  draft,  chairman  of  the  District 
Exemption  Board  of  Division  1,  and  it  was  these  draft  exemptions, 
apparently,  that  his  board  had  to  review. 

Olney:   Yes.  That's  right.   It  was  a  little  different  set-up  than  we've 

had  since.   It  was  exemptions  that  he  was  concerned  with.   I  remem 
ber  his  doing  it,  of  course,  and  spending  a  lot  of  time  on  it,  but 
that's  all  I  remember  about  it. 

Fry:     Do  you  know  what  the  State  Military  Welfare  Commission  was,  of  which 
he  was  chairman? 

Olney:   I've  never  even  heard  of  it,  although  I  notice  it  is  mentioned  in 
his  Biographical  Sketch  of  1920. 

Fry:     He  was  chairman  from  1917-1918,  and  I  don't  know  whether  this  was 
a  part  of  the  draft  set-up  or  not. 

Olney:    I  do  not  know. 

Fry:     There  was  a  reference  to  labor,  too.   There's  a  speech  in  The 

Bancroft  Library  in  which  he  addresses  the  annual  conclave  of  the 
building  trades  council  and  assures  the  members  that  they  are  making 
progress  and  warns  against  mistakes  of  violence,  and  of  not  living 
up  to  agreements.  He  assures  them  of  the  necessity  of  the  right  to 
picket,  and  says  that  this  is  being  accepted  more  and  more. 


27 


Olney:  I  don't  recall  that.  I  don't  know  of  a  reason  for  it.  There  was  a 
time  when  he  was  an  arbitrator  of  a  strike.  I  think  it  was  the  Key 
System  strike.  It  had  been  a  rather  bitter  strike.  It  was  settled 
finally  by  arbitration,  and  he  was  one  of  the  arbitrators.  I  think 
that  probably  a  speaking  invitation  of  this  sort  came  out  of  his 
having  arbitrated  that  strike. 

Fry:     Well,  they  printed  it  right  on  the  front  page  of  their  labor  paper, 
so  I  gathered  that  he  must  have  been  looked  upon  as  somebody  very 
important  and  relevant  at  the  time. 

Olney:   The  only  thing  I  remember  about  the  arbitration — I  don't  even  know 
how  it  came  out — was  that  a  day  or  two  after  it  was  over,  and  the 
decision  was  announced,  during  the  afternoon,  a  package  was  delivered 
at  our  house.   It  was  a  big  package.   When  Father  came  home  he  opened 
the  thing  up.   I'll  never  forget  his  horror!   [laughter]   It  was  a 
great,  big,  silver  punch  bowl,  with  a  big  ladle  and  everything  else. 
It  was  inscribed  to  him,  and  it  was  from  one  of  the  parties  in  the 
arbitration! 

Oh,  gosh,  he  was  fit  to  be  tied.   He  got  that  thing  back  in  the 
box  and  he  got  it  out  of  the  house.   He  returned  it  immediately. 
This  was  at  dinner-time,  but  he  wouldn't  even  eat  his  dinner  until 
that  thing  was  out  of  the  house.   Oh,  was  he  burned!   [laughter] 

Fry:     You  don't  know  which  side  it  was  that  sent  it  to  him? 

Olney :   No . 

Fry:     That  could  have  been  a  real  trap. 

Olney:   Oh,  yes. 

Now  what's  next? 


Antitrust  Action 


Fry:     He  was  called  by  the  Attorney  General  of  the  United  States  to  be 
counsel  or  something  for  a  radio  case.   There's  just  a  small 
reference  to  this.  Maybe  you  could  describe  what  that  was? 

Olney:   Well,  this  is  one  of  the  more  important  things  that  he  did.  What 
year  was  that? 

Fry:     I  don't  have  the  date  on  that.   It's  not  listed  in  his  small  bio 
graphies  in  Who's  Who. 


28 


Olney:   William  D.  Mitchell  was  the  attorney  general  at  the  time,  and  John 
Lord  O'Brien  was  the  assistant  attorney  general  in  charge  of  the 
antitrust  division. 

Fry:     Was  this  when  you  were  in  his  law  office? 

Olney :   Oh ,  no . 

Fry:     It  was  before  that? 

Olney:   Well,  now,  let  me  see.  Herbert  Hoover  was  the  president;  that's 
when  it  was.   Yes,  I  guess  I  was  out  in  Martinez.   This  must  have 
been  '27,  '28,  '29,  or  '30 — somewhere  along  in  there.  Yes,  that 
would  be  right. 

Fry:     All  right,  that  gives  us  a  clue,  then. 

Olney:   Herbert  Hoover,  I'm  quite  sure  from  what  I've  been  told  by  my 

father's  partners  and  others,  wanted  to  put  my  father  on  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court,  when  a  vacancy  came  along.   But  he  thought  he 
might  have  trouble  doing  it,  because  Father's  clients  had  been 
exclusively  from  the  business  interests,  and  he'd  never  represented 
labor  unions.  He  represented  corporate  interests. 

This  antitrust  suit  was  brought  by  John  Lord  O'Brien,  the  assist 
ant  in  charge  of  the  antitrust  division,  William  D.  Mitchell  being 
the  attorney  general.   It  was  against  Radio  Corporation  of  America, 
General  Electric,  the  telephone  company  (American  Tel),  Westinghouse, 
and  there  may  have  been  some  more  large  corporate  defendants  like 
that  in  the  case.   They  were  charged  with  forming  a  patent  pool  in 
which  they  had  pooled  all  their  patents,  and  would  issue  licenses 
only  to  people  who  would  take  a  license  for  all  the  patents  in  the 
pool.  The  government  claimed  that  was  a  violation  of  the  antitrust 
law,  and  filed  suit  accordingly.   The  people  who  were  on  the  short 
end  of  the  deal  were  the  smaller  radio  manufacturers  like  Zenith 
and  Admiral — I  remember  them,  in  particular.   This  was  before  TV, 
but  there  was  an  awful  lot  of  money  involved  in  that  lawsuit,  a 
terrible  amount  of  money  involved  in  it  and  in  the  consequences  of 
it. 

The  attorney  general  asked  Father  to  become  special  assistant 
and  to  take  charge  of  this  lawsuit  against  these  big  companies,  for 
the  government. 

Fry:     Is  this  frequently  done,  bringing  in  an  outside  person? 

Olney:   Sure.   In  fact,  I  did  it  myself,  sometimes.   I  mean,  I  both  retained 
people  and  I've  been  retained.   It's  frequently  done. 


29 


Fry:     I  see.   Am  I  correct  in  seeing  your  connection  here  between  the  fact 
that  Hoover  wanted  to  appoint  him  to  the  Supreme  Court  but  was  afraid 
of  his  business  connections,  and  this  job? 

Olney:   I  think  he  gave  him  this  job  as  a  sort  of  an  Air  Wick.   In  this 

litigation  he  would  be  representing  the  public,  against  entrenched 
business  interests  of  this  kind. 

Fry:     Against  the  business  interests,  so  that  he  could  appoint  him  with 
fewer  questions  from  the  Senate. 

Olney:   I  think  that's  what  he  had  in  mind,  yes.   But  I'm  only  guessing  at 
that. 

Anyway,  Father  took  the  case,  and  this  meant  he  had  to  go  back 
there  to  Washington  and  Wilmington  where  the  case  was  to  be  tried. 
It's  a  long,  long  story.   There's  a  book  called  The  Corrupt  Judge, 
written  by  a  man  who  collected  all  the  known  cases  of  corruption  of 
federal  judges.*  This  radio  case  got  mixed  up  with  some  of  these 
judges  who  were  indeed  corrupt,  and  a  lot  of  this  is  in  the  book. 

The  case  ran  along  for  a  long  time.   It  was  successful.   It 
ended  up  on  the  eve  of  trial  with  a  consent  decree.   The  defendants 
came  in  and  consented  to  a  permanent  injunction  against  this  pooling 
that  they'd  been  engaged  in.   The  decree  is  still  on  the  books. 
It's  still  in  effect  and  it's  still  binding,  and  every  once  in  a 
while  the  government  has  to  haul  somebody  up  on  a  charge  of  contempt 
for  violating  the  decree  in  some  way. 

Fry:     So  this  had  the  same  significance  as  legislation? 

Olney:   Oh,  yes.   It  was  a  landmark  case  in  radio.   It  resulted  in  breaking 
up  a  large  illegal  patent  pool  and  patent  monopoly. 

My  father  went  to  Washington  on  this  litigation,  and  he  and  my 
mother  were  overnight  guests  of  the  Hoovers  in  the  White  House 
several  times  in  connection  with  it.   After  it  was  settled,  they 
returned  here,  and  then  a  vacancy  came  up  on  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court.   This  was  through  the  retirement  of  Mr.  Justice 
Edward  T.  Sanford.   There  was  the  usual  speculation  about  who  was 
going  to  be  appointed. 


''Joseph  Borkin,  The  Corrupt  Judge;   An  Inquiry  into  Bribery  and 
Other  High  Crimes  and  Misdemeanors  in  the  Federal  Courts. 


30 


Olney:   I  received  a  letter  some  years  ago  from  one  of  my  father's  partners 
about  this.   I  asked  him  about  it  once,  because  he  had  told  me 
about  some  questions  that  had  been  asked  of  him  by  people  in  the 
Justice  Department.   He  had  been  aware  that  they  were  considering 
my  father  for  filling  that  position.   But  the  nomination  finally 
went  to  Judge  John  Parker,  the  chief  judge  of  the  Fourth  Circuit 
Court  of  Appeals.   The  Senate  refused  to  confirm  Judge  Parker  due 
mainly  to  the  opposition  of  John  L.  Lewis  and  the  United  Mine 
Workers.   Up  until  this  past  year,  this  is  the  only  nomination  to 
the  Supreme  Court  that  was  ever  turned  down  by  the  Senate! 
[laughter] 

Then  President  Hoover  nominated  Owen  J.  Roberts,  of  Tea  Pot  Dome 
fame,  to  fill  the  spot  and  he  was  confirmed  without  controversy. 

When  I  went  back  to  Washington  and  became  director  of  the 
Administrative  Office,  Judge  John  Parker  was  still  chief  judge  of 
the  Fourth  Circuit  Court  of  Appeals  and,  as  such,  a  member  of  the 
Judicial  Conference.  When  I  met  him,  since  I  had  the  same  name  as 
my  father,  he  spotted  me  immediately,  and  was  very  friendly  and 
very  kind  to  me.   He  remarked  to  me  about  my  father.   I  think  he 
was  trying  to  sound  me  out  a  little  as  to  how  much  I  knew.   I 
didn't  know  anything,  hardly,  but  I  think  also  he  was  wondering  if 
I  was  aware  of  the  fact  that  my  father  had  been  considered  for  the 
same  appointment  he  had  been  considered  for.   [laughter] 

Fry:     Is  there  anything  in  the  press  at  that  time  about  this? 
Olney :   No . 


U.S.  Supreme  Court  Advisory  Committee  on  Rules  of  Civil  Procedure 


Fry:     Later  on  you  started  working  in  your  father's  office  again  in  the 

'30s,  and  while  you  were  there  he  was  a  member  of  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court's  Advisory  Committee  on  Rules  of  Civil  Procedure  for 
the  U.S.  District  Courts. 

Olney:   Yes.   That's  a  much  more  important  thing  than  it  sounds.   Here's  a 
documentary  history  of  it.   [hands  interviewer  a  book] 


31 


Fry:     The  name  of  this  is  "Rules  of  Civil  Procedure  for  "the  District 

Courts  of  the  United  States:   A  Documentary  History,  1934-1938." 
Now  this  has  Warren  Olney,  Jr.'s  name  on  it.   Does  each  copy  have 
a  name  on  it? 

Olney:   Each  member  of  the  committee  was  given  a  bound  copy  with  his  name 
on  it. 

Fry:     So  if  someone  is  looking  this  up,  is  that  all  they  need  to  know, 
what  I  just  read? 

Yes.   This  is  very  well  known.   These  rules  are  still  in  use. 
Apparently  this  had  very  far-reaching  effects  on  rules. 

Yes,  it  did,  and  on  procedure  in  litigation  in  state  as  well  as 
federal  systems,  because  the  federal  rules  worked  so  well  that 
state  after  state  adopted  them.   They're  used  in  most  states  as 
well  as  the  federal  courts  now. 

What  had  occurred  was  that  the  federal  courts  had  tried  for 
years  to  have  rules  that  were  the  same  as  the  rules  of  the  states 
in  which  they  sat.  With  forty-eight  states  you  had  forty-eight 
separate  systems  of  federal  rules,  and  some  were  good  and  some 
weren't.   Then  there  was  a  difference  in  jurisdiction  in  civil 
litigation  between  ordinary  law  courts  and  the  chancellor's  court, 
the  equity  courts.   In  the  federal  court  the  same  judge  would  sit 
as  a  judge  in  equity,  or  a  judge  at  law,  but  the  two  systems  were 
different,  and  the  rules  were  different;  the  pleadings  were  differ 
ent.   Then  they  also  sat  as  admiralty  courts,  on  maritime  matters, 
and  they  had  still  another  separate  system  of  rules. 

Instead  of  leaving  this  to  the  Congress,  or  the  legislature 
(which  is  almost  an  impossible  way  of  going  about  it) ,  Charles 
Evans  Hughes,  who  was  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States, 
conceived  the  idea  of  the  Supreme  Court  having  an  advisory  com 
mittee  to  make  a  complete  revision  of  the  rules  of  procedure  in 
civil  cases  that  would  be  applicable  to  all  federal  courts  and 
disregard  the  rules  of  local  state  courts,  and  also  that  would 
abolish  this  procedural  distinction  between  equity  and  law. 

They  assembled  a  committee  of  about  sixteen  to  eighteen  people. 
They  were  judges,  lawyers,  and  scholars  from  all  parts  of  the 
country,  trying  to  get  a  geographical  distribution,  and  also  a 
difference  of  experience  and  point  of  view  and  whatnot.   The 
chairman  of  the  committee  was  William  D.  Mitchell,  a  Democrat  who 
had  been  attorney  general  under  Presidents  Coolidge  and  Hoover. 
He  was  attorney  general  at  the  time  my  father  had  the  radio  case, 
for  example. 


32 


Olney:   From  '34  to  '38  they  proceeded  to  work  on  the  subject  with  periodic 
meetings.   They  worked  like  the  dickens,  as  you  can  see  from  these 
things.   They  had  a  staff  that  saw  this  thing  through,  and  they 
finally  came  up  with  a  set  of  rules  which  was  approved  by  the 
Supreme  Court,  and  then  was  adopted  and  put  into  effect.   I  have 
here  a  copy  of  the  American  Bar  Journal  from  April,  1939.   I 
couldn't  figure  out  at  first  why  I  had  kept  this,  but  it's  simply 
because  of  the  article  they  have  on  the  new  rules. 

Fry:     Is  it  true  that  those  rules  used  some  of  the  western  state  rules  as 
a  model? 

Olney:   Yes,  they  did  in  some  respects,  in  such  things  as  discovery  (that 
is,  methods  of  finding  out  what  your  opponent's  case  is  about  so 
you  can  be  reasonably  prepared  when  you  get  into  court)  they  did 
follow  procedure  which  was  very,  very  like  the  California  procedures. 
That  was  one  of  the  western  contributions. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  were  other  procedures,  such  as  starting 
a  lawsuit  without  even  filing  a  complaint  in  the  clerk's  office,  and 
things  of  this  kind — the  service  of  process — which  were  entirely 
eastern  innovations.   They  were  complete  novelties  to  us.   I  remem 
ber  Father  coming  back  from  one  of  the  meetings  and  telling  about 
this  procedure,  and  we  were  both  scratching  our  heads  and  wondering 
how  in  the  world  that  thing  would  ever  work!   But  he  said,  "The  fact 
is  that  it  does.   It  does  work  and,  of  course,  it's  so  much  cheaper 
and  so  much  simpler  than  what  we've  been  doing.   I'm  very  much 
impressed." 

Fry:     So  they  put  that  in  too? 
Olney:   Oh,  yes. 

If  my  father  was  reviewing  his  own  professional  activities,  I 
think  he  would  regard  his  work  on  that  committee  as  one  of  the  more 
important  things  he  did. 

Fry:     I  understood  that  also  this  was  significant  because  it  tended  to 
remove  rule  making  itself  from  the  legislative  branch. 

Olney:  That's  true.   That's  right,  yes. 

Fry:  And  has  this  been  followed  pretty  much,  since? 

Olney:  Oh,  yes.   The  Congress  doesn't  monkey  with  it,  not  any  more. 

Fry:  It's  not  monkeyed  with  any  more,  but  what  about  state  legislatures? 


33 


Olney:   We've  always  had  a  code  of  civil  procedure,  which  was  enacted  by 
the  legislature,  which  gave  some  additional  rule-making  authority 
to  the  court.   Just  what  it  is  now,  I  don't  know.   I  haven't  been 
in  the  California  courts  for  so  long,  and  there  have  been  many 
revisions.   I  don't  know  what  they're  doing.   But  the  procedures 
in  state  courts  in  California  and  in  the  federal  courts  today  are 
so  alike  that  a  lawyer  has  no  difficulty  in  going  from  our  court 
to  another. 

Fry:     Can  a  lawyer  also  handle  a  case  in  any  part  of  the  country? 

Olney:   Yes,  indeed.   I  guess  my  father  was  still  a  member  of  the  committee 
when  he  died  in  '39,  because  the  committee  was  still  functioning, 
with  Attorney  General  Mitchell  as  chairman,  when  I  went  back  to 
Washington  in  1953. 

Fry:     It  was?  So  this  '39  article,  then,  was  not  a  swan  song,  or  its 
final  report? 

Olney:   Oh,  no.   The  committee  continued.   They  didn't  have  any  terminal 

facilities.   [laughter]   There  wasn't  any  provision  for  getting  rid 
of  them.   After  the  rules  were  adopted,  they  would,  nevertheless, 
meet  every  once  in  a  while  to  see  whether  or  not  there  was  anything 
that  needed  revision.   After  about  five  years  they  did  come  up  with 
one  or  two  suggested  revisions.   I  think  they  had  mostly  to  do  with 
condemnation  cases,  which  the  Supreme  Court  didn't  like,  so  they 
wouldn't  approve  those. 

But  they  still  kept  the  committee  on.   It  got  to  be  a  very 
embarrassing  thing,  because  the  members  got  altogether  too  old. 
They  got  in  their  dotage,  and  they  just  kind  of  fumbled  around. 
As  they  would  die  off,  the  vacancies  wouldn't  be  filled,  and 
there 'd  be  only  a  few  left. 

One  of  the  first  things  that  Earl  Warren  did  when  he  became 
chief  justice  was  to  abolish  this  ancient  committee.   They  had 
really  performed  magnificently.   Their  achievement  was  very,  very 
great,  and  everybody  knows  it.   After  they  were  terminated,  the 
federal  courts  were  without  any  advisory  committee  for  a  couple  of 
years.   The  Chief  Justice  felt  he  had  to  do  that — to  go  without 
one — in  order  to  avoid  any  appearance  of  having  fired  the  old 
committee,  you  see,  and  gotten  a  new  one.   There  was  nothing  they 
could  do  with  that  old  committee.   They  had  to  get  rid  of  it  that 
way. 

Then  they  reconstituted  a  new  set  of  committees.   Each  member 
of  these  committees  was  appointed  for  a  fixed  term.   I  had  a  great 
deal  to  do  with  these  new  committees.   The  Chief  Justice  decided 


34 


Olney:    that  he  would  get  legislation  from  the  Congress  authorizing  the 
Supreme  Court  to  have  committees  of  this  kind,  so  that  their 
expenses  could  be  included  in  the  judicial  budget  and  appropria 
tions.  When  I  became  director,  that  legislation  was  pending.   It 
hadn't  been  enacted,  and  my  first  job  was  to  try  to  get  that 
through,  which  I  did. 

Fry:     You  became  an  instant  lobbyist  for  the  Supreme  Court? 
Olney :   Right . 

Fry:     Who  helped  you  get  the  legislation  through?  Were  our  California 
Senators  helpful? 

Olney:   Well,  no.   They  were  mostly  judges  who  helped  me  on  it,  people 

like  Judge  John  Biggs,  chief  judge  of  the  Third  Circuit  Court  of 
Appeals,  and  Judge  Albert  Maris  of  the  same  court,  and  others. 
This  wasn't  controversial.   It  was  just  a  matter  of  satisfying 
Congress  that  something  good  would  come  out  of  it.   They  had  the 
very  good  example  of  the  first  committee.   Under  that  legislation 
the  Chief  Justice  appointed  an  overall  committee  on  rules  with 
Judge  Albert  Maris  as  chairman  and  subsidiary  committees  on  civil 
rules,  one  on  criminal  rules,  on  bankruptcy  rules,  on  admiralty 
rules,  and — there's  a  fifth — I  guess  it  was  evidence.   They  were 
advisory  committees  that  functioned  in  the  same  way  as  the  old 
committee. 

Fry:     These  are  all  for  procedures,  right? 

Olney:   Yes.   The  admiralty  rules  committee,  for  example,  succeeded  after 
three  years  of  awfully  hard  work  in  coming  up  with  a  set  of  rules, 
that  were  adopted,  which  merged  the  procedures  in  admiralty  with 
those  of  general  civil  litigation,  so  there's  now  only  one  set  of 
rules.   The  distinction  is  abolished,  much  to  the  disgust  of  the 
admiralty  bar,  who  liked  their  special  titles  and  things  of  this 
kind. 

Fry:     They  had  a  very  special  thing  going  there. 

Olney:    Sure!   [laughter]   The  reports  of  all  these  committees  on  special 
subjects  went  through  Judge  Maris1  overall  committee  to  coordinate 
the  whole  thing,  and  to  avoid  any  overlaps  or  duplications,  and  to 
work  for  consolidation  of  procedures. 

Fry:     That  was  instead  of  evidence? 


35 


Olney:   We  had  an  evidence  committee  later.  We're  getting  pretty  much  off 
the  subject.   I  was  merely  giving  you  this  so  you'd  see  that  it  is 
an  important  thing  that  my  father  was  doing,  and  why  he  regarded 
the  work  of  the  rules  committee  of  which  he  was  a  member  as 
important  work. 

Fry:     Were  all  of  these  new  committees  under  your  wing? 

Olney:   Each  committee  had  its  own  reporter  and  staff.  We  merely  did  the 
housekeeping  for  them. 


Water  Resources 


Fry:     We're  completely  free  now  to  just  discuss  those  things  that  you  feel 
were  other  dimensions  of  your  father.  He  was  involved  in  some  com 
mittees  on  water.   He  was  on  the  California  Joint  Federal-State 
Water  Services  Commission,  appointed  by  Governor  Young,  in  1929. 
In  1931  Governor  Rolph  appointed  him  to  the  Honorary  Advisory 
Committee  of  the  Water  Resources  Commission,  and  I  wonder  if  you 
remember  anything  about  that? 

Olney:   Yes,  I  do.   The  water  problem  at  that  time  was  primarily  in  the 

Colorado  River.   The  Hoover  Dam  was  being  discussed  and  considered, 
and  worked  on.   Then  there  were  some  flood  control  problems  and 
other  problems  in  the  San  Joaquin  and  Sacramento  Valleys.   It  was 
about  that  time  that  the  first  suggestions  and  the  first  studies 
were  made  of  the  feasibility  of  having  a  water  system  like  the  one 
they  have  in  the  valley  now,  with  Shasta  Dam  and  the  system  of 
canals  going  right  down  to  the  southern  end  of  the  valley  and  on 
to  Los  Angeles.   It  was  the  very  beginning  of  preliminary  considera 
tions  and  discussions  of  that  kind. 

My  father  had  conducted  a  large  number  of  water  cases.   That's 
why  he  was  on  these  committees. 

Fry:     Were  those  his  cases  for  power  companies,  the  Pacific  Gas  and 
Electric  Company  account? 

Olney:   Yes,  primarily.   For  example,  one  of  the  major  water  cases  in  the 
state  is  the  so-called  Herminghaus  case,  Herminghaus  vs.  Southern 
California/Edison.   It  involved  water  rights  on  the  Kings  River,  I 
think  it  was,  and  it  was  an  immensely  important  lawsuit  with  very, 
very  far-reaching  consequences.   The  real  question  at  issue  was  the 
extent  to  which  the  common-law  doctrine  of  riparian  rights  would 
apply  in  the  state  of  California  as  against  the  rights  of  appropria 
tion.   Now,  in  common  law  there  isn't  any  such  thing  as  getting 


36 


Olney:   water  rights  by  appropriation.   That  comes  from  Spanish  law, 

primarily,  and  Mexican  law,  and  from  the  West.   Father  succeeded 
in  losing  the  Herminghaus  case  in  the  state  supreme  court  so  that, 
of  course,  made  him  a  recognized  authority  on  the  subject. 


[Interview  2:  July  30,  1970] 


Fry:     In  1929  it  was  the  California  Joint  Federal-State  Water  Services 
Commission  that  your  father  was  appointed  to  by  Governor  Young, 
apparently.  Was  he  especially  close  to  Governor  Young? 

Olney:   They  went  to  college  together,  and  Governor  Young  used  to  live  in 
Berkeley,  down  on  Etna  and  Derby  Streets  for  a  time.   Father  had  a 
lot  of  stories  about  Governor  Young.   I  remember  one  in  particular 
about  Young  being  caught  as  a  freshman  on  the  streetcar  that  ran 
along  College  Avenue.   Some  sophomores  took  him  off  the  streetcar 
and  tied  him  up  and  put  him  in  a  bush.  My  father,  who,  I  think, 
was  a  senior  at  that  time,  and  some  others  came  along  and  found 
C.C.  Young  and  others  there,  all  tied  up,  and  turned  them  loose, 
[laughter]   I  think  that  was  their  first  meeting.   But  they  knew 
each  other  after  that,  of  course. 

Fry:     Joe  Beck  was  very  proud  of  the  part  that  he  played  in  grooming 

C.C.  Young  for  governor,  and  he  wanted  to  tell  us  all  about  this 
on  tape,  and  then  he  died  before  we  could  get  to  him.  Beck  felt 
that  Young  was  one  of  the  outstanding  governors. 

Olney:   Well,  I  have  no  way  of  evaluating  governors.   I  know  that  during 
the  time  he  was  governor,  and  afterwards,  he  was  regarded  as  a 
very  good  governor,  a  great  improvement  on  what  had  gone  before. 
Stephens  was  regarded  as  a  far  better  governor  than  Friend 
Richardson,  who  succeeded  him.   But  that's  only  in  the  circle  of 
people  who  I  happened  to  hear  talking  about  governors. 

Fry:  I'd  like  to  back  up.  You  had  mentioned  to  me  that  you  were  aware 
of  your  father  being  involved  in  the  1922  fight.  Was  it  a  public 
versus  private  power  and  water  fight?  It  was  a  referendum. 

Olney:   There  was  an  initiative  measure  to  try  to  get  state  approval  for 
a  water  development  program  that  involved  the  water  resources  in 
Northern  California  as  well  as  on  the  Colorado  River,  as  I  recall. 
I  only  know  that  my  father  took  an  active  part  in  trying  to  support 
that,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  was  not  infrequently  retained  by 
the  power  companies.   That's  all  I  remember  about  it. 

Fry:     He  was  supporting  the  public — 


37 


Olney:   Yes.   He  was  in  favor  of  the  initiative,  which  was  defeated. 

Fry:     Then  you  think  that  this  other  committee,  in  1929,  was  the  study 
commission  that  Young  appointed. 

Olney:   Well,  I'm  thinking  about  this,  but  my  recollection  is  that  there 
was  a  series  of  political  fights  after  '22  in  an  effort  to  get 
various  water  plans,  more  or  less  similar,  approved.  They  were 
beaten  by  the  well-organized  opposition  of  the  power  companies, 
every  time. 

This  commission  that  you  speak  of  was  sort  of  a  compromise,  an 
interim  device,  as  I  recall.   They  decided  that  instead  of  trying 
to  propose  a  specific,  definite  program,  they  ought  to  lay  a  founda 
tion  by  an  adequate,  intelligent  study  of  the  problem,  with  recom 
mendations  from  a  body  whose  recommendations  would  carry  some  public 
weight. 

That,  I  think,  was  the  purpose  of  it,  not  to  support  any 
particular  program,  but  to  look  at  them  all  and  evaluate  them  all, 
and  then  try  to  make  recommendations  as  to  what  the  state  should 
do,  as  far  as  its  future  was  concerned.   They  came  up  with  one 
proposal  in  1931,  a  water  resources  program  which  eventually  was 
carried  out.   It  included  both  the  Central  Valley  and  the  Colorado 
River . 

Fry:     Yes.   In  1931  what  was  called  the  State  Water  Plan  was  presented  to 
the  legislature.   In  1933  it  was  finally  passed,  and  then  it  became 
the  Central  Valley  Project,  and  this  is  what  we're  still  arguing 
about  today. 

The  1931  committee  that  he  was  on  must  have  been  a  continuation 
of  this  1929  study  commission. 

Olney:   I  dare  say. 

Fry:     The  governor  changed.   Governor  Rolph  was  in,  and  it  became  the 

Honorary  Advisory  Committee  of  the  Water  Resources  Commission.  By 
that  time  the  purpose  would  have  changed,  I  guess. 

Olney:   Frankly,  I  don't  remember.   At  the  time  that  these  things  were 

happening — that  is,  from  '20  onwards — I  was  married,  and  living  in 
Martinez  and  north  Berkeley,  and  only  knew  about  these  things  from 
what  I  read  in  the  paper  and  what  my  father  might  occasionally  say 
to  me  about  it. 

Fry:     Okay.   Then  the  most  we  can  do  is  just  establish  the  fact  that  he 
was  involved  in  these  first  steps  in  getting  the  water  plan  under 
way. 


38 


Olney:   Yes,  he  was. 

Fry:     Probably  if  anyone  wants  to  know  anything  more  they  can  go  to  the 
reports  of  these  commissions  and  find  out.   But  the  interesting 
thing  about  your  father  is  that  he  was  able  to  represent  PG&E  and 
Southern  California  Edison  in  cases,  and  at  the  same  time  maintain 
his  own  integrity  in  his  public  opinions  on  the  power  issue. 

Olney:   I  remember  that  the  power  companies  were  sort  of  lying  in  wait  for 

the  proponents  of  the  measure,  because  they  thought  that  even  though 
the  public  were  to  build  the  dams  and  the  transportation  of  water, 
and  that  kind  of  thing,  they  could  control  the  distribution  of  power. 
They  alone  had  the  lines,  and  they  thought  that  they  could  prevent 
public  power  from  being  introduced  into  the  picture,  and  that's 
what  they  were  really  concerned  about.   Now,  after  that  was  passed 
in  '31,  there  was  an  awful  fight  about  that,  particularly  from  Shasta 
Dam. 

I  remember  my  uncle,  Louis  Bartlett,  ex-mayor  of  Berkeley,  was 
very,  very  strongly  in  favor  of  public  ownership  of  the  power  lines. 
My  recollection  is  my  father  was  not.   I'm  not  sure  about  that.   I 
would  think  that  he  may  well  have  opposed  public  ownership  of  those 
electric  power  lines,  but  I  don't  recall.   But  I  didn't  want  to  give 
you  a  wrong  impression. 

Fry:     Do  you  know  what  your  father  felt  when  the  Hetch  Hetchy  Dam  was 
built,  and  then  the  power  came  through  and  was  sold  at  San  Fran 
cisco  instead  of  being  retailed  directly  from  public  power  lines 
to  the  reisdents  of  San  Francisco?  After  a  big  fight,  PG&E  finally 
got  the  right  to  distribute  that  power.   Do  you  remember  his  talking 
about  that? 

Olney:   I  don't  remember  what  his  views  on  it  were,  but  at  that  time  he  was 
counsel  for,  and  his  firm  represented,  the  Spring  Valley  Water 
Company.   They  were  not  in  the  power  business,  however.   I  think 
that  was  before  the  consolidation  of  Great  Western  Power  and  PG&E. 

Fry:     Yes,  I  think  it  was  before  that. 

Olney:   At  that  time  he  was  representing  Great  Western  Power,  not  PG&E.   I 
don't  think  Great  Western  Power  got  itself  concerned  in  that  fight, 
because  their  lines  didn't  come  down  here.   They  were  up  around  the 
Sacramento  area.  So  I  doubt  if  he  had  anything  to  do  with  that. 
No  doubt  he  had  some  views  about  it,  but  I  don't  know  what  they 
were. 


39 


Views  on  "Court  Packing" 


Fry:     Then  the  other  thing  that  we  didn't  mention  last  time  and  that  I 

wish  you  could  tell  us  something  about  was  the  work  that  he  did  to 
alert  the  general  populace  about  the  dangers  of  a  president 
[Roosevelt]  adding  judges  to  the  Supreme  Court. 

Olney:   He  felt  very,  very  strongly  about  that  and  thought  that  it  was  the 
responsibility  of  the  bar  to  alert  the  public  as  to  what  was 
involved  in  it.  He  thought  that  the  crux  of  the  plan  was  simply 
to  overturn  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  that  the  administration 
didn't  agree  with.  There'd  been  a  whole  series  of  decisions  holding 
the  NRA  [National  Recovery  Act]  unconstitutional,  the  AAA  [Agricul 
tural  Adjustment  Act]  unconstitutional,  and  a  few  other  things  like 
that.   He  felt  that  this  was  merely  a  political  move  to  stack  the 
court  and  to  reverse  those  decisions.   He  and  a  former  president  of 
the  American  Bar  Association,  and  others  in  the  East  who  were 
equally  concerned,  tried  to  organize  a  campaign  against  the  court- 
packing  plan  through  bar  organizations.  My  father  made  a  speech  or 
two  on  the  subject  and  wrote  a  good  many  letters,  and  things  like 
that,  in  connection  with  it. 

Fry:     We  have  one  of  those  speeches  in  the  Olney  papers  in  The  Bancroft 
[Library] ,  and  then  you  gave  me  one  of  his  speeches  last  time  I 
was  here. 

Olney:   I've  always  thought  it  was  interesting  that  the  Attorney  General  of 
the  United  States  who  proposed  that  plan  was  Robert  Jackson,  who 
later  became  himself  a  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court.  My  father  was 
very  active  in  beating  that  plan  in  Congress.  When  I  went  to 
Washington,  Robert  Jackson  was  the  leading  spirit  in  an  American 
bar  crime  commission,  and  he  asked  me  to  be  a  member  of  that  com 
mission  [laughter],  which  I  did! 

Fry:     You  didn't  have  any  problems  working  with  him,  I  gather,  even 
though  your  father  had  fought  against  him. 

Olney:   None  whatever.   He  was  a  very  delightful  man  to  work  with. 

Fry:     Had  his  views  changed  at  all  on  this  question?  Or  did  you  ever 
approach  him  on  it? 


40 


Olney:   I  think  they  had.   I  never  asked  him  about  it.   It  was  all  past 

history  at  that  time.   It  was  very  curious  the  way  it  worked  out. 
This  happened  because  Roosevelt,  who  had  been  in  office  for  a  long 
time,  had  not  made  a  single  appointment  to  the  Supreme  Court,  and 
there  didn't  seem  to  be  any  prospect  of  it.   Very  shortly  after 
this,  he  made  a  large  number  of  appointments  to  the  Supreme  Court 
and  soon  it  had  a  majority  of  his  appointees. 

Fry:     So  he  accomplished  the  purpose. 

Olney:   But  the  whole  idea  of  a  president  or  an  administration  trying  to 

get  its  ideas  through  the  Supreme  Court  by  stacking  the  membership 
of  the  Court  has  never  worked.   Furthermore,  a  president  never  can 
anticipate  how  any  of  those  justices  are  going  to  vote,  whether  he's 
appointed  them  or  not.  A  great  many  presidents  have  gotten  very 
great  surprises  from  their  appointees. 


Hunting  and  Packing 

Fry:     I  think  that's  the  last  thing  on  our  outline  about  your  father, 
unless  you'd  like  to  add  what  sort  of  a  man  he  was  like  to  be 
around.  Was  he  lively  and  bubbly,  or  was  he  quiet  and  gentle? 
Kind  of  give  us  a  Reader's  Digest  type  of  description  of  him! 
[laughter] 

Olney:   Well,  he  was  not  "bubbly".   He  was  reserved,  but  not  quiet.   He 
was  always  very  active  physically.   He  played  tennis  regularly 
up  until  the  time  he  was  sixty  anyway,  maybe  older.   Then  he  took 
up  golf,  and  he  played  golf  up  until  the  time  he  died,  and  he 
enjoyed  that  very  much.   He'd  been  a  football  player  in  college, 
and  then  a  referee  for  football  games  after  that.   He  enjoyed 
trout  fishing  and  deep-sea  fishing  very,  very  much,  especially 
trout  fishing. 

When  he  was  a  young  man  he  did  a  good  deal  of  traveling  around 
the  mountains  in  California.   He  took  many,  many  pack  trips.   His 
particular  area  was  the  Cascades,  up  around  Mount  Shasta,  and 
places  like  that.   I  know  he  climbed  Shasta  at  least  four  or  five 
times.  He  used  to  love  the  place. 

Incidentally,  my  mother's  father,  Dr.  J.K.  McLean,  climbed. 
Mount  Shasta  at  least  three  times.   On  one  occasion  he  remained  on 
the  summit  for  two  or  three  days,  keeping  company  with  a  man  from 
the  United  States  Geological  Survey.   The  Survey  was  trying  to 
exchange  heliographical  signals  between  Mount  Shasta,  Mount  St. 
Helena,  and  some  peaks  near  Lake  Tahoe  (Mount  Lola)  for  triangulation 


41 


Olney:   purposes.   Of  course,  they  had  to  wait  for  the  right  day  for 
visibility,  but  they  succeeded.   The  flash  from  Shasta  to  St. 
Helena  was  reported  to  be  the  longest  distance  heliograph  signal 
received  up  to  that  time.   The  official  report  of  this  incident 
makes  mention  of  Dr.  McLean's  assistance  and  suggests  naming  a 
small  knob  on  the  summit  for  him. 

Father  and  his  friend  Charlie  Bentley — this  was  before  either  of 
them  were  married — they'd  go  up  to  Redding  or  Red  Bluff  and  pick  up 
a  couple  of  mules  and  put  their  sleeping  bags  and  food  on  them  and 
they'd  go  right  into  those  mountains  and  be  gone  for  weeks  at  a 
time. 

They  covered  enormous  distances.  My  father  used  to  scratch  his 
head  in  later  years  and  wonder  how  in  the  world  they  ever  got  so 
far  in  a  single  day  as  they  did  on  some  of  those  trips  I   [laughter] 
But  they  stayed  away  from  trails  pretty  much — they  just  went  across 
country  and  saw  a  great  deal  of  it. 

Fry:     He,  as  a  young  man,  was  a  charter  member  of  the  Sierra  Club. 
Olney:   That's  right. 

Fry:     Was  he  active  in  the  Sierra  Club  outings?   It  sounds  like  he  more 
or  less  went  off  on  his  own. 

Olney:   Yes,  he  was.  He  and  my  mother  went  on  either  the  first  or  the 
second  outing  the  club  had. 

Fry:     With  John  Muir? 

Olney:  I  don't  know  about  Muir.  Will  Colby  led  it.  They  went  into  the 
Kern  Canyon  that  year.  I  know  my  mother  went  on  only  one  of  the 
trips.  I'm  not  sure  how  many  Father  went  on.  Most  of  the  trips 
that  he  took  were  on  his  own,  rather  than  with  the  club. 

Fry:     Yes.   It  sounds  like  he  was  enough  of  a  pro  that  he  enjoyed  sort  of 
going  with  his  mules  and  his  friends. 

Olney:   Along  in  1918  he  had  occasion  to  meet  Jay  Bruce,  who  was  the  official 
mountain  lion  hunter  for  the  State  of  California.   He  met  him  up  at 
Wawona . 

Fry :     You  mean  that  the  state  hired  a  person  to  hunt  down  mountain  lions? 

Olney:    Sure.   He  was  on  salary,  and  then  he  also  got  a  bonus  of  $20  for 

every  lion  that  he  turned  in.  He'd  be  called  to  different  counties 
of  the  state  where  the  lions  appeared,  and  he'd  go  out  and  hunt  them. 


42 


Olney:   My  father  got  acquainted  with  Bruce  and  liked  him,  and  then  my 

brother  and  I  and  my  father  went  on  hunting  trips  with  Bruce  three 
or  four  times.   The  longest  trip  was  in  the  area  just  north  of 
Yosemite.  We  started  from  Buck  Meadows  on  the  Big  Oak  Flat  Road 
and  went  north  across  the  Tuolumne  River,  up  above  Hetch  Hetchy 
into  Cherry  Valley  and  back.   Cherry  Valley  is  covered  with  a 
reservoir  now.  We  were  gone  a  couple  of  weeks,  something  like 
that.  This  was  in  the  summer  of  1919. 

Bruce  came  up  to  Shasta  County  at  least  two  or  three  times,  and 
made  his  headquarters  at  the  Bollibokka  Club  that  my  father  and 
others  founded.   It's  on  the  McCloud  River.  With  that  as  the  head 
quarters,  Bruce  made  a  lot  of  trips  out  there.   He  must  have  been 
there  a  couple  of  weeks.   My  brother  and  my  father  and  I  went  out 
with  him  two  or  three  different  times  in  the  spring  of  1919,  using 
the  club  as  a  headquarters. 

Fry:     He  was  a  real  expert,  wasn't  he,  in  getting  around  in  the  mountains, 
and  knowing  them? 

Olney:   Oh,  yes,  he  was — yes,  he  did. 

Fry:     I  mean,  lacking  a  railroad  mogul's  private  car,  this  would  be  the 
next  best  thing,  I  guess,  going  out  with  a  man  like  this! 

Olney:   Well,  it  was  if  you  wanted  to  hunt.  As  a  young  man,  Father  did  a 
lot  of  deer  hunting.  We  had  a  lot  of  deer  heads  and  rattlesnake 
skins  around  the  house  when  I  was  a  boy  that  Father  had  mounted  as 
trophies.   I've  done  a  lot  of  squirrel  shooting  and  things  like  that, 
and  the  idea  of  hunting  mountain  lions  was  very  appealing  to  me. 
But  on  this  trip  into  Cherry  River,  Bruce 's  dogs  had  been  without 
any  meat  for  a  couple  of  weeks.   He'd  been  feeding  them  on  pancakes, 
and  they  were  getting  pretty  ratty  and  weak.   He  had  authorization 
from  the  Fish  and  Game  Commission  to  shoot  animals  for  food  purposes 
if  he  needed  to. 

Fry:     Had  he  deliberately  kept  his  dogs  on  pancakes,  so  they  would  get 
hungry? 

Olney:   Oh,  no.  This  was  because  we  hadn't  gotten  anything;  we  hadn't 

caught  up  with  anything.   So  he  decided — there  were  plenty  of  bears 
around — that  he'd  shoot  a  deer  or  a  bear  to  get  some  meat.  We  treed 
a  bear,  and  I  was  given  the  great  privilege  of  shooting  this  bear. 
He  was  up  in  a  big  yellow  pine  tree,  way  up  on  a  high  branch, 
standing  on  a  branch  with  one  paw  against  the  trunk  of  the  tree, 
looking  down  at  us,  with  these  dogs  snapping  around  down  below, 
[laughter]   I  got  a  great  thrill  out  of  being  allowed  to  zero  in 
on  that  bear. 


43 


Olney:   I  shot  him  right  through  the  head.   Down  he  came  with  a  tremendous 
crash,  you  know,  and  the  dogs  all  pounced  on  him  and  worried  him 
and  whatnot,  and  the  more  I  looked  at  this,  the  more  he  looked  like 
a  baby  with  a  fur  coat.   Oh,  I  had  the  most  awful  revulsion.   I  just 
felt  like  a  murderer.   And  I've  never  been  able  to  do  any  shooting 
since.   It  cured  me! 

Fry:     It's  interesting  that  the  viewpoint  of  the  whole  Sierra  Club  has 
changed  to  an  anti-hunting,  preservation-of-wildlif e  view,  too, 
since  then. 

Olney:   Oh,  well,  yes,  certainly.   Of  course,  this  was  1919  that  I'm 

speaking  of.   Our  population  was  very  small.  We  had  animals  all 
over  the  place. 

Fry:     You  were  seventeen  years  old? 

Olney:   Yes.   Mountain  lions  were  thought  to  be  something  that  ought  to  be 
exterminated:  they  killed  deer,  they  killed  sheep  and  lambs  and 
things  of  this  kind.  Why,  there  was  a  bonus  of  $20  a  head  for 
anybody  that  killed  one! 

It's  closed  season  on  mountain  lions  in  California  today.   It's 
the  same  old  story  of  finding  that  the  predators  have  a  very  import 
ant,  necessary  place  in  the  balance  of  nature.   But  we  didn't  think 
in  those  terms  at  all.  We've  had  to  learn  these  things  the  hard 
way. 

Fry:     And  then  you  had  your  very  personal  lesson! 

Olney:   Oh,  yes!   It  wasn't  any  ecological  thought  that  I  had;  it  was  just 
that  I  thought  it  was  so  cruel  and  horrible. 

Fry:     Yes.   Bears  are  sort  of  appealing  animals,  too. 
Olney:   They  are,  yes. 

Fry:     At  any  rate,  I  gather  that  you  were  able  to  have  a  lot  of  outdoor 
life  and  activity  when  you  were  growing  up. 

Olney:  Oh,  yes. 

Fry:  And  you  learned  to  carry  a  pack  on  your  back? 

Olney:  A  knapsack,  yes,  and  a  bedroll  once  in  a  while. 

Fry:  How  many  pounds  did  you  carry? 


44 


Olney:   I  don't  know,  but  I  don't  recall  ever  having  to  carry  very  much. 
Most  of  the  packing  I  did  was  after  we  got  married,  during  the 
Depression.  We  didn't  have  money  for  a  vacation,  and  Elizabeth  and 
I  would  do  the  same  thing  that  my  father  used  to  do.  We  went  up  in 
the  mountains  and  we'd  just  get  a  mule  or  a  horse  and  pack  it  and 
walk,  did  our  own  packing.  We  covered  nearly  the  whole  Sierras 
that  way. 

Fry:     You  did? 

Olney:   The  only  area  that  we  haven't  explored  thoroughly  is  the  Kern, 

which  is  the  most  southern  part.  We've  covered  everything  else, 
and  a  lot  of  it  many  times.  We  did  this  for  well  over  ten  years. 
Then  when  our  children  were  ten — we  didn't  take  them  before  they 
were  about  ten — we  did  the  same  thing  with  them,  too,  took  them 
along . 

Fry:  Backpacking  equipment  is  greatly  improved  now.  When  you  first 
started  out,  the  bedrolls  were  extremely  heavy,  and  I  wondered 
what  difference  you  see  in  this  now? 

Olney:   Well,  they  were  heavy,  and  that's  why  we  always  took  an  animal  and 
never  did  any  backpacking.  We  could  get  an  animal — a  mule  or  a 
pack  horse — for  $1.50  a  day.   If  you  took  it  on  a  weekly  rate  it 
was  less  than  that.   Our  food  was  very  carefully  planned  out.  We 
used  to  use  the  Sierra  Club  list  that  Dr.  Hildebrand  got  together, 
and  used  that  as  a  base.  We  had  our  own  modifications,  but  it  was 
very  light,  very  compact,  and  very  adequate.   It  really  kept  us  in 
fine  shape.   But  we  used  a  mule  or  horse  always  because  of  the 
heaviness  of  the  bedroll,  and  things  of  this  kind. 

Elizabeth  and  I  developed  a  pretty  efficient  division  of  labor 
in  packing  the  animals.   She  always  put  on  and  fitted  the  harness. 
She  put  on  the  saddle  blankets  and  also  put  on  the  pack  saddle  and 
set  them  and  cinched  them  with  great  care.   I  balanced  and  loaded 
the  kyaks  or  pack  boxes  or  whatever  we  were  using.  I  loaded  the 
bedrolls  and  utensils  and  we  slipped  on  the  canvas  cover  for  the 
load  together.   Then  I  tied  the  whole  load  together  with  the 
diamond  hitch — that  being  the  only  hitch  that  I  knew  how  to  throw. 
Our  system  worked  very  well.   On  our  many  trips  not  one  of  our 
animals  ever  developed  a  saddle  sore  or  any  other  injury  or  ailment. 
Furthermore,  we  never  lost  a  pack  or  even  had  one  slip.   I  usually 
led  the  lead  animal  with  the  others  tied  in  a  string.   At  night  we 
always  staked  our  lead  animal,  relying  on  the  others  to  stay  around, 
which  they  usually  did. 

Fry:     Did  you  ever  get  snowed  in? 

Olney:   We  got  snowed  on,  but  we  never  got  snowed  in.   Just  snow  that  fell 
during  the  night,  or  something  like  that. 


45 


III  WARREN  OLNEY  III:  BACKGROUND 


Childhood 

Fry:     I  guess  we'll  go  on  into  chapter  three,  if  we're  not  already  in  it, 
on  your  childhood. 

Olney:   Life  in  Berkeley  when  I  first  remember  it  was  very  different  than 
it  is  now.   I'm  speaking  about  the  years  around  1909  and  1910  when 
I  was  five  and  six  years  old  and  we  were  living  in  a  house  which  is 
still  standing  at  the  corner  of  Warring  Street  and  Channing  Way. 
One  of  my  most  vivid  recollections  of  this  period  is  my  dislike  for 
the  clothing  which  I  had  to  wear.   My  clothes  were  no  different  from 
what  other  boys  in  the  neighborhood  were  wearing  and  I  suppose  they 
disliked  theirs  as  much  as  I  did  mine. 

My  regular  garb  started  with  a  porous  knit  union  suit.   Over  that 
I  wore  a  pantywaist  with  garters.   The  garters  held  up  long  black 
stockings  which  were  mandatory.   Our  pants  were  always  knicker 
bockers  that  fastened  above  the  knee  and  were  of  corduroy  or  some 
other  reasonably  tough  material.  We  wore  a  shirtwaist  that  tied 
around  the  waist  with  a  string  which  was  tucked  into  the  top  of 
the  pants.  More  often  than  not  we  wore  neckties.  We  wore  button 
shoes  that  came  up  above  the  ankles  and  had  to  be  fastened  with 
button  hooks.   They  were  supposed  to  be  black,  but  they  rarely  were 
because  of  the  scuffing  they  took.   A  good  part  of  the  time  we  had 
large  holes  in  the  knees  of  our  stockings  due  to  falling  down  when 
at  play.   Sometimes  we  wore  little  leather  knee  guards  over  our 
knees  that  fastened  with  elastic  bands  and  that  were  supposed  to 
protect  the  stocking  in  case  of  a  fall. 

When  we  got  really  dressed  up,  my  brother  and  I  were  put  in 
sailor  suits  with  sailor  collars  in  the  back  and  large,  floppy 
sailor  hats.   These  clothes  were  as  uncomfortable  as  they  sound, 
and  how  we  loathed  them. 


46 


Olney:   About  this  time  a  family  from  New  Zealand  moved  into  our  neighbor 
hood.   Their  boy,  Noel  Izet,  was  clothed  New  Zealand  style.   A  loose 
shirt  with  open  collar  and  short  sleeves,  short  pants  and  wool  socks 
that  ended  below  the  knees  and  low,  brown  shoes.   Just  about  the 
sort  of  clothes  that  everyone  wears  today.   How  we  envied  Noel.  We 
thought  he  was  the  luckiest  boy  on  the  block. 

Transportation  in  our  neighborhood  was  very  different  from  what 
it  is  now.   There  was  indeed  one  automobile  in  our  neighborhood, 
belonging  to  the  McFarlands,  complete  with  chauffeur,  but  no  one 
else  had  an  automobile.   Just  a  block  below  us  on  Piedmont  Avenue, 
north  of  Channing  Way,  lived  a  Miss  Fish.   She  lived  in  an  elegant 
house  and  garden  and  had  a  stable  with  a  pair  of  matched  horses  and 
a  fine  carriage  with  a  top  that  could  be  put  back.  She  had  a  coach 
man  to  drive  it  and  to  care  for  the  horses.   Occasionally  she  would 
take  one  or  two  of  us  neighborhood  children  for  a  ride,  something 
that  we  really  enjoyed.  We  would  sit  on  the  front  seat  facing  Miss 
Fish  and  riding  backwards  with  a  pair  of  pug  dogs  that  she  usually 
had  as  passengers.   No  one  else  in  the  neighborhood  owned  any  private 
transportation . 

My  Grandfather  McLean's  church  was  still  located  at  12th  and  Clay 
Streets  in  Oakland  some  five  miles  away  and  my  mother,  of  course, 
made  sure  that  my  brother  and  I  went  to  Sunday  school  there.   To  get 
there  we  walked  down  Channing  Way  two  blocks  to  College  Avenue  and 
took  the  streetcar  for  five  cents. 

There  were  residences  along  College  Avenue  as  far  as  Alcatraz 
but  no  places  of  business.   From  Alcatraz  to  the  top  of  the  Broadway 
hill  where  College  Avenue  meets  Broadway  in  Oakland,  it  was  mostly 
open  country.  A  very  pretty  creek  with  live  oaks  on  its  banks  ran 
where  the  Chimes  Theater  was  later  built  and  there  was  a  wooden 
bridge  for  the  streetcar  to  cross.   From  the  top  of  the  Broadway 
hill  down  to  14th  and  Broadway  there  were  scattered  residences  with 
a  great  many  vacant  lots. 

At  22nd  Street  and  Broadway  was  the  Key  Route  Inn.   This  was  the 
terminus  for  the  Key  Route  trains  which  ran  to  the  Ferry  Terminal 
located  where  the  eastern  end  of  the  San  Francisco  Bay  Bridge  is 
now.   There  were,  of  course,  many  other  Key  Route  trains  fanning 
out  to  Berkeley,  Elmhurst,  and  Piedmont.   However,  on  22nd  Street 
in  Oakland  the  line  ended  at  Broadway  and  there  the  company  had 
built  this  large  inn  some  three  or  four  stories  in  height  right 
over  the  car  tracks.  The  architecture  was  supposed  to  be  Eliza 
bethan.   It  was  fully  equipped  with  guest  rooms  and  a  dining  room. 

14th  and  Broadway  was  the  center  of  business  in  Oakland  at  that 
time.   In  the  basement  of  the  large  building  on  the  northeast 
corner  there  was  a  barber  shop  and  this  was  the  most  accessible 


47 


Olney:   barber  shop  to  our  home  in  Berkeley.  Mother  took  my  brother  and  me 
there  for  our  haircuts.   There  must  have  been  some  four  or  five 
barber  chairs.   In  back  of  the  chairs  were  glass  cabinets  with 
shelves  loaded  with  shaving  mugs.   The  safety  razor  had  not  been 
invented  and  most  men  got  their  daily  shave  in  the  barber  shop. 
Regular  customers  had  their  own  mugs,  usually  with  their  names  on 
them,  and  their  own  shaving  brushes.   Berkeley  did  have -a  barber 
shop  on  Shattuck  Avenue  near  Addison  Street,  but  the  transportation 
was  so  lacking  that  it  was  quicker  and  easier  to  go  for  a  haircut 
in  Oakland  than  it  was  to  get  to  the  barber  shop  in  Berkeley. 

My  father  was,  of  course,  commuting  daily  to  San  Francisco.  He 
would  have  to  walk  down  Charming  Way  to  College  Avenue  and  catch  a 
streetcar  that  went  south  on  College  to  Alcatraz  Avenue  and  then 
west  on  Alcatraz  to  Adeline  Street.  Getting  off  at  Alcatraz  and 
Adeline,  there  were  two  lines  of  transportation  to  San  Francisco. 
One  was  the  Key  Route  with  its  electric  cars  which  ran  to  the 
terminal  I  have  already  mentioned.   The  other  was  a  steam  railroad 
of  the  Southern  Pacific  Company  which  ran  to  the  Southern  Pacific 
mole  where  its  Transconinental  trains  met  the  ferry.   The  mole  was 
not  far  from  where  the  BART  tunnel  goes  below  the  surface  on  its 
way  under  the  bay.   For  a  long  time  the  fare  to  San  Francisco  was 
ten  cents  each  way.   Both  the  Key  Route  and  Southern  Pacific  ferries 
had  restaurants  aboard  and  the  Key  Route  was  noted  for  its  corned 
beef  hash. 

* 

When  the  family  went  to  Grandfather  Olney 's  home  on  29th  Street 
in  Oakland,  as  we  often  did  on  Sunday,  we  almost  always  took  the 
streetcar.   There  was  no  taxi  service,  but  there  was  a  livery 
stable  in  town.   It  was  located  on  Kittredge  Street  across  from 
the  present  California  Theater.   The  stable  had  a  cab  which  was 
pulled  by  a  single  horse  and  was  usually  driven  by  a  Mr.  Fitzpatrick, 
Father  and  Mother  used  it  only  on  the  most  formal  occasions  and  then 
had  to  make  arrangements  at  least  a  day  ahead  of  time. 

At  this  time  there  was  a  huge  vacant  area  in  the  neighborhood  of 
40th  and  Shafter  Streets  in  Oakland.   This  lot  was  used  by  all  the 
circuses  and  traveling  shows  that  came  to  town.   I  can  remember 
being  taken  to  one  by  my  Grandfather  Olney  and  it  was  notable  indeed. 
It  was  Buffalo  Bill's  Wild  West  and  the  cast  included  Buffalo  Bill 
himself;  Annie  Oakley,  the  famous  rifle  shot;  and  a  troop  of  Indians 
who  had  been  present  at  Custer's  last  stand.   I  still  remember  Annie 
Oakley's  incredible  marksmanship.   Little  glass  balls  were  projected 
into  the  air  at  great  heights  and  at  all  angles  and  she  would  break 
them  one  after  the  other  with  a  rifle  shot,  never  missing. 


48 


Olney:   The  Indians  were  a  tremendous  sensation.   They  were  there  in  full 

regalia,  riding  their  horses  bareback,  and  they  whooped  and  hollered 
as  they  tore  around  the  ring  chasing  a  stagecoach  with  Buffalo  Bill 
and  others  and  exchanging  blank  shots  at  each  other,  making  a  most 
satisfactory  racket. 

By  1911  and  1912  the  transportation  situation  began  to  change. 
Grandfather  Olney  bought  a  Rauch  and  Lang  electric  automobile  for 
Grandmother.   The  body  was  finished  like  an  elegant  carriage.   It 
had  plate  glass  windows  all  around,  very  good  light  grey  upholstery, 
a  small  glass  vase  for  flowers,  and  silk  roller  shades  for  all  the 
windows . 

The  driver  steered  the  car  with  a  horizontal  lever.   He  pushed 
the  lever  forward  to  turn  left  and  pulled  the  lever  back  towards 
himself  to  turn  right.  The  power  was  applied  with  a  vertical  lever 
at  the  left  side  of  the  driver's  seat.   The  lever  was  pushed  forward 
to  make  the  car  go  and  pulled  back  to  turn  the  power  off .   The  tip 
of  the  lever  had  a  button  which  rang  a  loud  bell  instead  of  a  horn. 
Top  speed  on  the  level  was  about  fifteen  miles  an  hour  and  the 
driving  range  between  charges  was  about  forty  to  forty-five  miles. 
At  first  Grandfather  used  to  take  the  car  to  the  shop  to  be  charged, 
a  distance  of  three  or  four  blocks,  and  a  recharge  took  not  less 
than  four  hours .   Soon  Grandfather  had  his  own  charging  unit 
installed  in  the  barn  where  the  horse  stalls  had  been. 

The  electric  came  equipped  either  with  pneumatic  tires  or  with 
solid  rubber  tires.   Grandfather  chose  the  latter  to  eliminate  the 
problem  of  punctures  and  blowouts.   This  had  some  curious  results. 
The  solid  rubber  tires  were  flat  on  the  street  with  vertical  sides 
and  the  distance  from  the  wheels  on  one  side  to  the  other  was  just 
a  little  bit  shorter  than  the  standard  distance  between  railroad 
and  streetcar  rails.   In  the  blocks  along  College  Avenue  between 
Russell  Street  and  Bancroft  Way,  asphalt  paving  had  recently  been 
laid.   I  believe  this  was  one  of  the  first  asphalt  pavings  to  be 
laid  in  Berkeley.   This  was  all  very  well  for  streetcars  and  the 
ordinary  automobile  with  pneumatic  tires,  but  the  electric,  with 
its  flat,  hard  rubber  tires  and  slightly  narrower  width,  could  get 
caught  between  the  rails  and  be  unable  to  get  out  no  matter  how 
hard  the  steering  lever  was  pushed  or  pulled.  More  than  once  we 
were  treated  to  the  sight  of  Grandmother  or  Grandfather  moving 
gently  along  in  their  electric  on  College  Avenue,  past  our  house 
where  we  were  then  living,  and  forced  to  go  all  the  way  to  Bancroft 
where  the  car  tracks  made  a  turn.  When  the  tracks  turned,  the 
electric  would  jump  the  rails  and  get  out  of  the  trap.   The  electric 
enabled  Grandmother  to  go  marketing  and  to  visit  the  cemetery,  but 
it  wasn't  good  for  much  else. 


49 


Olney:   In  a  few  years  Grandfather  bought  a  gas  car  for  himself.   This  would 
have  been  about  1913  or  1914.   This  was  a  Studebaker  Roadster. 
Grandfather  said  that  Studebaker  had  made  very  fine  wagons  during 
the  mining  days  and  if  they  made  good  wagons  they  probably  made 
good  automobiles.   Grandfather's  car  had  the  gearshift  and  clutch 
that  was  usual  at  the  time.   But  the  way  he  operated  it  was  not  so 
usual.   He  had  been  told  to  depress  the  clutch,  put  the  shift  in 
first  gear,  and  release  the  clutch,  and  then  do  the  same  thing  with 
second  and  third  gear. 

He  did  this  in  the  most  literal  fashion.  He  would  step  on  the 
clutch,  put  the  shift  into  first  gear,  and  then  simply  take  his 
foot  off  the  clutch,  starting  the  car  with  a  jerk  that  was  enough 
to  snap  one's  head  off.   Then,  speeding  the  car  up,  he  would  again 
depress  the  clutch  and  with  the  same  deliberation  put  the  shift 
into  second  gear,  taking  his  foot  off  with  a  second  jerk  that  was 
nearly  as  violent  as  the  first.   The  same  thing  took  place  when  he 
put  it  into  high,  only  the  jerk  wasn't  so  severe.   Somehow  Grand 
father  never  learned  to  drive  the  car  any  other  way. 

He  wasn't  a  very  popular  driver  and  I  guess  his  little  Studebaker 
didn't  like  it  much  either.   One  Sunday,  when  the  whole  family 
happened  to  be  assembled  on  his  front  steps  and  front  lawn,  he 
drove  the  car  in  from  the  street  on  his  way  to  the  barn  in  the  back. 
There  was  a  depressed  gutter  at  the  edge  of  the  street,  which  would 
give  the  car  quite  a  bounce  if  it  was  moving  at  any  considerable 
speed.   On  this  day  Grandfather  hit  the  gutter  and  both  the  rear 
wheels  fell  off.  My  father  and  my  uncles  laughed  so  hard,  I  thought 
they  would  expire.   Later  examination  in  the  shop  showed  that  these 
jerky  starts  of  Grandfather's  had  so  twisted  the  axles  that  they 
had  finally  twisted  the  wheels  to  the  point  where  they  both  broke 
off. 

Our  house  on  Warring  Street  had  no  yard  or  space  around  it.   The 
vacant  lots  in  the  neighborhood  were  fast  being  built  upon,  with 
the  result  that  there  was  no  place  for  us  boys  to  play,  excepting 
in  the  street.   This  distressed  my  mother,  with  the  result  that  we 
moved  from  Warring  Street  to  a  larger  house  at  the  corner  of  College 
Avenue  and  Dwight  Way. 

This  house  had  a  very  large  L-shaped  fenced  back  yard  with  plenty 
of  room  for  a  garden,  and  back  of  that  a  great  deal  of  open  space 
for  us  boys  to  build  tree  houses,  dig  tunnels  and  earth  fortifica 
tions,  and  build  swings  and  pigeon  lofts,  all  on  our  own  property. 
At  the  back  of  the  lot  on  Dwight  Way  was  a  garage.   But  since  we 
had  no  automobile,  the  garage  was  rented  to  my  father's  friend 
Charles  Merrill,  who  did  have  one.   The  Merrills  lived  in  a  very 
large  house  which  they  had  built  for  themselves  on  Warring  Street, 


50 


Olney:   but  it  had  been  constructed  without  any  garage.   Their  chauffeur, 
known  to  us  as  Hongy,  had  a  good  four-block  walk  to  the  garage 
every  time  the  Merrills  wanted  to  use  the  car . 

About  the  first  privately  owned  automobile  to  appear  in  our 
Dwight  Way  neighborhood  was  the  property  of  the  William  Gorrills, 
who  were  old  friends  of  my  parents  and  known  to  us  as  Uncle  Billy 
and  Aunt  Kitty.   They  had  won  the  car  in  a  contest  and  it  was  a 
Ford  Model  T.   Since  the  self-starter  had  not  yet  been  invented, 
it  had  to  be  cranked  by  hand..  Not  infrequently  the  motor  would 
backfire  when  starting  and  this  would  cause  the  crank  to  fly  around 
like  crazy  in  a  reverse  direction.   Two  or  three  arms  were  broken 
before  it  was  realized  that  after  giving  the  crank  a  strong  pull 
to  turn  over  the  motor,  the  handle  should  always  be  released  like 
a  red-hot  coal  so  that  the  arm  would  be  out  of  the  way  in  case  of 
a  backfire.   Broken  arms  for  Ford  owners  were  about  as  common  in 
those  days  as  broken  legs  are  for  ski  enthusiasts  today.   It  could 
be  safely  assumed  that  a  man  with  his  arm  in  a  sling  was  the  owner 
of  a  Model  T. 

About  1916  or  1917  my  father  decided  to  buy  a  car.   He  considered 
seriously  getting  an  Ohio  electric  but  finally  settled  on  a  gas  car 
made  by  the  Dodge  Brothers.   This  was  quite  a  unique  car;  it  had  a 
four-cylinder  motor  with  a  self-starter.   It  had  an^electric  horn 
with  a  button  that  was  located  on  the  lefthand  wall  of  the  car  by 
the  driver's  seat.   To  blow  the  horn  you  hit  the  button  with  your 
knee. 

Our  car  was  unique  for  the  area  in  that  it  had  a  sedan  body  with 
glass  windows.   Up  to  then  the  only  cars  we  had  seen  in  our  area 
had  fabric  tops  which  could  be  put  down  and  side  curtains  with 
isinglass  windows  for  wet  weather.   The  magazines  had  pictures  of 
a  few  more  expensive  makes  of  cars  with  sedan  bodies  with  glass 
windows,  but  there  were  none  in  our  area.   Ours  was  said  to  be  the 
first  Dodge  sedan  in  Northern  California.   That  distinction  didn't 
last  long;  the  Dodge  sedan  became  very  popular  and  was  soon  seen 
almost  everywhere. 

A  few  years  later  Father  bought  a  large  seven-passenger  sedan. 
It  was  a  Cole  Aero  Eight  painted  a  dark  navy  blue  and  it  had  cream- 
colored  wire  wheels.   Cole  claimed  its  cars  would  get  superior 
mileage  on  tires  and  it  had  an  advertising  slogan,  "15,000  miles 
on  tires" — if  you  got  ten,  you  were  lucky. 

Like  all  cars  of  the  period,  the  Cole  had  running  boards  on  both 
sides  and  these  were  often  used  for  carrying  extra  supplies.  My 
mother  and  Grandmother  McLean  were  fond  of  making  weekend  visits  to 
Saratoga  where  they  stayed  at  a  boarding  house  run  by  some  people 


51 


Olney:   named  Lunblad,  and  I  usually  drove  them  on  such  trips.   The  distance 
was  only  about  sixty  miles,  but  in  preparation  for  the  trip  I  would 
strap  onto  the  running  board  on  the  driver's  side  three  cans,  one 
containing  water  for  the  radiator,  the  second  containing  engine  oil 
for  the  crank  case,  and  a  third  containing  extra  gasoline.  It  might 
well  be  necessary  to  use  one  or  all  of  these  cans  on  such  a  trip; 
the  most  frequent  need  was  for  extra  oil. 

Of  course,  I  had  to  provide  for  punctures  too.   It  was  remarkable 
to  go  to  Saratoga  and  back  without  one  or  more  flat  tires.  We  did 
not  have  demountable  wheels  and  so  I  could  not  carry  an  inflated 
tire.   I  carried  an  extra  casing  and  extra  inner  tubes,  a  set  of 
patches  and  vulcanizing  equipment.   If  the  puncture  was  just  a  nail 
hole,  which  was  the  commonest  cause,  I  would  jack  up  the  wheel, 
take  the  tire  off,  pull  out  the  inner  tube,  and  vulcanize  the  patch 
on  the  tube  right  then  and  there,  and  then  put  the  tube  back  in  the 
casing  and  put  it  on  the  wheel. 

Then  the  tire  had  to  be  inflated.   The  only  way  of  doing  this 
with  the  Dodge  was  with  a  hand  pump  and  it  would  take  twenty  minutes 
to  a  half  an  hour  to  inflate  a  tire  to  the  necessary  sixty-five 
pounds.   The  Cole,  however,  had  an  air  pump  under  the  front  seat 
which  was  driven  by  the  motor,  so  it  could  blow  up  its  own  tires 
without  someone  having  to  do  it  by  hand.   Today  it  is  fun  to  see 
these  old  cars  in  a  museum.   They  look  pretty  snazzy  when  they're 
all  polished  and  shiny  and  are  only  driven  for  a  few  blocks  in  a 
parade.   But  in  their  hey  day  they  were  utterly  unreliable  and  a 
trip  of  any  length  in  one  was  more  of  an  ordeal  than  an  adventure. 

Household  shopping  was  very  different  in  my  childhood.   There 
were  no  supermarkets  and  housewives  did  not  go  to  the  grocers  to 
pick  up  their  supplies  for  the  family.   In  Berkeley  there  was  a 
large  grocery  store  named  Sills  located  on  Shattuck  Avenue.   Every 
weekday  morning  men  from  Sills  would  cover  the  town  taking  orders. 
These  men  rode  in  light  buggies  pulled  by  a  single  horse.   A  long 
leather  tether  was  attached  to  the  bridle  of  the  horse  with  a  heavy 
iron  weight  at  the  other  end.   The  weight  was  carried  in  the  buggy 
with  the  tether  still  attached  to  the  bridle.  When  the  order  man 
arrived  at  a  customer's  house,  he  would  throw  out  the  weight,  which 
would  anchor  the  horse,  and  then  go  to  the  house  to  inquire  if  there 
was  any  grocery  order  for  the  day.   The  housewife  would  tell  him  her 
needs,  which  he  would  write  on  his  pad,  giving  a  copy  to  her  and 
taking  the  original  back  to  the  store.   Each  order  man  would  cover 
a  whole  neighborhood.  When  the  orders  reached  the  store  they  would 
be  packed  in  delivery  wagons  pulled  by  two  horses  and  delivery  would 
be  made  in  the  afternoon. 


52 


Olney:   The  grocery  business  was  conducted  in  this  way  before  automobiles 
and  for  a  long  time  afterwards.   Indeed,  this  kind  of  business  was 
done  even  after  the  telephone  appeared.   One  reason  for  this  was 
that  there  were  two  competing  telephone  companies,  the  Home  Tele 
phone  Company  and  the  Pacific  Telephone  Company.   Each  had  its  own 
customers  and  was  independent  of  the  other  and  one  could  not  make 
a  call  from  one  telephone  system  to  the  other.   A  few  people  had 
both  systems  install  telephones  in  their  houses,  but  most  telephone 
customers  had  one  or  the  other,  while  the  majority  of  homes  had  no 
telephones  at  all.  Many  people  regarded  the  telephone  as  a  nuisance 
and  more  trouble  than  it  was  worth  and  with  this  kind  of  service  one 
can  see  why. 

When  I  was  a  boy  we  had  long  distance  telephone  service  only  up 
and  down  the  Pacific  coast.   One  could  not  telephone  to  Chicago, 
New  York,  or  Washington,  D.C.   This  made  those  cities  seem  very  far 
away  indeed.   The  first  transcontinental  telephone  line  was  not 
completed  until  1915,  the  year  of  the  Panama  Pacific  International 
Expositon  in  San  Francisco  to  celebrate  the  opening  of  the  Panama 
Canal.   At  that  Exposition,  the  telephone  company  had  a  very  popular 
display  of  their  recently  completed  transcontinental  line.   A  whole 
room  full  of  people  was  provided  with  telephone  receivers  and  then 
one  was  selected  to  make  a  telephone  call  to  some  Atlantic  seaboard 
city.  When  the  call  was  put  through,  everyone  in  the  room  was 
allowed  to  listen  in  on  this  miraculous  exchange  of  voices  from  one 
side  of  the  continent  to  the  other.   Of  course,  the  parties  to  the 
conversation  were  informed  of  the  people  listening  in.   This 
exhibition  drew  very  large  crowds  all  year  long  of  people  who 
wanted  to  hear  a  voice  from  the  other  side  of  the  continent. 

Another  thing  that  was  very  different  when  I  was  a  child  was  our 
money.   In  California  and,  indeed,  all  over  the  West,  paper  money 
was  unknown  and  coins  were  used  exclusively.   The  penny  was  copper 
and  the  five-cent  piece  was  nickel.   The  dime,  half  dollar,  and 
dollar  were  real  silver.  Five  dollars,  ten  dollars,  and  twenty 
dollars  were  in  gold  pieces.   I  suppose  there  were  coins  of  larger 
denomination,  but  I  don't  remember  ever  seeing  one.   I  did  not  see 
any  paper  money  until  I  was  taken  to  Boston,  New  York,  and  Washing 
ton  when  I  was  twelve  years  old  in  1916.  Our  gold  coins  were  as 
strange  in  the  East  as  their  paper  money  was  in  the  West.   I  remember 
Father  offering  a  gold  coin  to  pay  for  some  theater  tickets  in  New 
York  City,  only  to  have  the  man  look  at  the  coin  with  the  greatest 
skepticism.  He  bounced  it  on  the  counter  to  hear  it  ring,  he  looked 
at  it  under  a  very  strong  light,  and  finally  he  even  bit  it.   In  the 
end  he  finally  accepted  it,  though  it  was  evident  he  had  never  seen 
a  gold  coin  before.   I  mention  these  bits  about  our  communications 
and  our  money  because  they  tend  to  illustrate  how  really  isolated 
we  were  out  on  the  Pacific  coast  from  the  rest  of  the  country  at 
that  time. 


53 


Fry:     I  wanted  you  to  say  a  little  bit  more  about  your  mother.  We  talked 
at  great  length  about  your  father,  and  maybe  you  could  tell  us  what 
sorts  of  things  she  was  interested  in,  and  so  forth.  We  do  have 
that  short  interview  from  her.* 

Olney:   Yes,  I'm  sure  you  do,  and  I'm  not  going  to  try  to  cover  everything 
that  was  in  there.   She  was  an  only  child.   Her  father  and  mother 
moved  to  Berkeley  when  he  became  president  of  the  Pacific  Theological 
Seminary,  as  it  was  called  at  that  time.   It's  now  the  Pacific  School 
of  Religion.  My  grandfather  McLean  built  a  house  on  Channing  Way, 
just  below  Piedmont  Avenue.  We  were  living  in  a  house  on  Channing 
Way  and  Warring  Street,  just  about  a  block  away,  so  that  as  small 
boys  my  brother  and  I  used  to  go  down  there  very  often.   But  my 
grandfather  McLean  became  senile  about  1913  and  had  to  go  to  a 
hospital.  He  died  in  1914.   My  mother's  mother  was  not  in  very 
good  health,  and  never  had  been.   In  spite  of  the  fact  that  she  was 
a  semi-invalid  most  of  her  life,  and  had  only  one  eye,  she  lived  to 
be  ninety-eight. 

My  mother  had  to  make  some  choices  that  I  know  were  difficult  for 
her.   And  the  choice  that  she  made  was  to  take  care  of  her  mother. 
There  were  many,  many  occasions  when  she  would  very  much  have  pre 
ferred  to  take  trips  with  my  father  and  take  part  in  his  activities, 
and  things  of  that  kind,  which  she  felt  she  couldn't  do  without 
neglecting  her  mother.   And  that  went  on,  my  grandmother  McLean 
not  dying  until  1930  or  '31. 

But  my  mother  was,  I  thought,  a  very  intelligent  mother  with 
good  judgment.   She  treated  my  brother  and  sister  and  me  very  well 
indeed.  We  had  the  greatest  affection  for  her,  but  she  didn't  leave 
us  at  loose  ends.   She  was  never  a  strict  disciplinarian,  but  she 
saw  that  we  were  fully  occupied,  and  gave  good  direction  to  our 
interests. 

For  example,  when  I  was  twelve  and  my  brother  was  fourteen — and 
this  was  at  her  instigation — she  and  my  father  took  the  two  of  us 
on  the  railroad  trip,  first  to  Boston,  and  then  to  New  York,  and 
then  to  Washington,  B.C.   They  took  us  out  of  school  for  the  purpose, 
and  we  must  have  been  gone  about  three  months,  sight-seeing,  and 
visiting  such  friends  as  they  had.   They  thought  that  we  ought  to 
see  something  more  of  the  country  than  we  had.  We  had  never  been 
outside  California  before.   She  left  my  sister  home  because  she  was 
too  small. 


*Mary  McLean  Olney,  Oakland  and  U.C.,  1880-95. 


54 


Olney : 


Fry: 
Olney : 

Fry: 
Olney : 
Fry: 

Olney : 


Fry: 
Olney : 


She  also  was  active  in  many  civic  things.  She  was  on  the  national 
board  of  the  YWCA  for  years.  I  guess  that's  in  the  interview  with 
her.  She  was  active  in  helping  purchase  Asilomar  for  the  YWCA. 
She  was  always  interested  in  Pomona  College  because  of  the  connec 
tion  of  her  father  with  it,  and  later,  for  years,  was  a  trustee  of 
the  college. 

Her  father  was? 

No,  my  mother  was.   This  was  in  the  '20s,  '30s,  '40s,  and  '50s, 
and,  I  think,  into  the  '60s. 

Was  this  your  mother  who  was  the  dean  of  women  there? 
Yes,  years  ago,  when  she  was  a  young  woman. 

What  are  some  of  the  other  activities  that  she  kept  you  boys  involved 
in  here  in  Berkeley,  as  she  channeled  your  energies? 

This  is  a  little  difficult  to  say.   It  was  a  day-to-day  matter. 
There  was  one  thing  about  my  bringing  up  that  was  a  little  peculiar, 
I  thought.   [laughter]   When  summers  would  come  around,  I  would  want 
to  get  a  job,  and  my  father  wouldn't  approve  of  it.  He  said,  "There 
are  too  many  boys  who  need  those  jobs,  and  you  can  get  along  without 
it,  and  it  isn't  right  for  you  to  go  taking  a  job  from  somebody  who 
needs  it."  So  I  never  had  a  job  until  I  got  out  of  law  school.   I 
never  earned  a  nickel!   [laughter]   Except  sweeping  the  sidewalk  or 
something  out  in  front  of  the  house.   This  was  peculiar  because  my 
older  brother  did  have  a  job  nearly  every  summer.   I  have  never 
understood  this. 

But  this  meant  they  had  to  keep  us  occupied  in  the  summer.   One 
summer,  when  I  was  ten,  my  mother  took  my  brother  and  me  for  seven 
weeks  to  Yosemite.  We  stayed  at  what  was  called  Camp  Ahwahnee,  long 
since  defunct.  It  was  a  tent-platform  affair.  It  was  perfectly 
marvelous.   There  were  no  automobiles.   They  hadn't  got  in  there 
yet;  you  had  to  go  up  by  train.  And  there  wasn't  anybody  to  speak 
of  in  the  valley,  anyway.  You  could  wander  all  around  the  floor  of 
the  valley  and  not  see  anybody. 

That  seems  incredible!   In  the  summer? 

Oh,  yes.   Sure.   I  mean,  if  you  went  down  to  the  village,  of  course, 
or  to  the  Sentinel  Hotel  or  in  Camp  Curry,  there  were  plenty  of 
people.   But  we  used  to  go  down  and  swim  in  the  Merced  River  and  we 
never  took  any  suits.   Didn't  have  to.   And  we  would  go  over  to 
Yosemite  Falls — walk  over  there  and  back — or  we  would  go  up  to  the 
top  of  the  falls,  and  not  see  anybody  the  entire  time. 


55 


Fry:     This  was  when  you  were  how  old? 

Olney:    I  was  ten. 

Fry:     So  that  would  have  been  1914? 

Olney:   Yes.  We  were  in  Tuolumne  Meadows  in  August,  1914,  when  World  War  I 
broke  out  in  Europe.   I  have  described  our  experience  in  the  fore 
word  I  wrote  for  my  grandfather's  biography  that  we  mentioned 
earlier. 

They  sent  us  back  again  in  1916  to  Yosemite.   My  brother,  I,  and 
a  friend  named  John  Baldwin.   This  time  they  sent  a  young  man  along 
to  take  care  of  us,  Victor  Doyle.   Victor  had  just  graduated  from 
college.   He'd  been  president  of  the  student  body  at  Berkeley.  We 
then  went  to  Camp  Ahwahnee,  and  Vic  rode  herd  on  us  for  a  good  many 
weeks,  and  then  took  us  on  a  pack  trip.  We  went  up  to  Merced  Lake 
and  to  Babcock  Lake. 

Then  in  1918  I  again  had  a  lengthy  summer  in  Yosemite.   This 
time  we  stayed  at  Yosemite  Falls  camp  that  had  just  been  built,  and 
I  didn't  need  anybody  to  nurse  me.   I  spent  most  of  the  time,  when 
I  wasn't  walking  around,  working  in  the  swimming  pool.   I  didn't 
get  paid  for  it!   [laughter] 

Fry:     That  was  all  right;  as  long  as  it  was  slave  labor,  your  father  would 
approve!   [laughter] 

Were  you  all  by  yourself  this  trip? 

Olney:   Oh,  no.  My  mother  was  along,  and  my  sister  was  there,  and  my 

grandfather  came  up  for  a  lengthy  stay  with  us,  too.   So  there  was 
a  group.   This  was  a  little  different  from  what  my  friends  were 
doing.   They  all  had  jobs!   [laughter]   But  if  you're  going  to  do 
that  with  a  child — a  boy  in  particular — you  do  have  to  give  thought 
and  make  plans  as  to  what  to  do  to  keep  him  busy. 

Fry:     Then  how  do  you  teach  them  to  handle  finances,  if  you  don't  let 
them  take  a  job?  Were  you  given  an  allowance  that  you  had  to 
manage  or  anything? 

Olney :   No . 

Fry:     You  were  really  underprivileged!   [laughter] 


56 


Schooling 


Fry:     I  guess  we  should  find  out  something  about  your  schooling.   You 
went  to  the  Berkeley  public  schools? 

Olney:   I  started  in  the  first  grade;  I  think  I  was  seven.   I  went  to  a 
private  school  known  as  Miss  Randolph's,  which  was  located  at 
Derby  and  Belrose  Avenue.   I  went  there  in  the  first  grade  and  I'm 
the  only  person  that  I  know  of  who  ever  flunked  the  first  grade! 
[laughter]   I  did!   They  wouldn't  promote  me. 

Fry:     Why  wouldn't  they  promote  you? 

Olney:   I  only  know  they  wouldn't.  And  this  made  my  mother  very,  very 
indignant.   So  she  took  me  out  of  this  school  and  put  me  in  the 
public  school.   I  went  to  Emerson  School.   Having  flunked  the  first, 
I  was  started  there  in  the  third. 

Fry:     On  the  basis  of  your  sterling  record?   [laughter] 

Olney:   I  went  to  Emerson  School  with  a  great  many  boys  and  girls  who've 

been  friends  all  my  life.   One  was  Henry  Colby;  that's  Will  Colby's 
son.   He  and  I  lived  across  the  street  from  each  other  on  Channing 
Way.  We  lived  on  Channing  and  Warring,  and  they  lived  on  the  other 
corner.  We  went  to  Emerson  together,  we  went  to  University  High 
together,  and  we  went  to  the  University  of  California  together — 
joined  the  same  fraternity — roomed  together  for  a  time.   So  I've 
known  him  a  long,  long  while. 

And  then  Scott  Elder  is  another  one  that  I  knew  at  Emerson.   He 
lived  down  on  Etna  Street.   This  is  Paul  Elder's  son.   Paul  Elder 
had  a  famous  bookstore  in  San  Francisco. 

Fry:     I  always  thought  they  were  in  San  Francisco. 

Olney:   No,  they  lived  in  Berkeley.   Scott  was  a  year  or  so  ahead  of  me, 

but  we  also  remained  very  good  friends  in  high  school  and  college. 
He  joined  the  same  fraternity.   Later  on  we  became  law  partners  for 
a  brief  time.   He  now  lives  right  across  the  street  from  me. 

Fry:     Oh,  is  that  right? 

Olney:   Yes.  His  grandchildren  and  ours  were  both  here  for  dinner  last 
night. 

Fry:     What  a  continuity.   It's  very  unusual  these  days. 
Olney:   Yes,  it  is. 


57 


Fry:     At  Emerson  did  you  have  any  more  problems? 

Olney:   I  did,  yes.   I  think  I  must  have  been  a  little  difficult  as  a  boy. 
There  were  one  or  two  teachers  there  that  I  liked  very  much,  and 
there  were  one  or  two  for  whom  I  developed  a  terrible  antipathy. 

Fry:     That  sounds  about  par  for  the  course. 

Olney:    I  guess  so.   I  had  a  hard  time  with  them.   I  just  moved  along 

gradually  at  Emerson,  but  by  the  time  I  got  through  with  the  sixth 
grade  there — that  was  as  far  as  it  went — I  was  a  year  and  a  half, 
at  least,  behind  my  own  age  group.   So  then  I  went  to  A  to  Zed 
School,  another  private  one.   Cora  Williams  ran  it  at  that  time. 
It  was  down  on  the  corner  of  Dana  and  Channing  Way.   I  did  three 
years'  work  in  two  down  there. 

Fry:     What  kind  of  a  school  was  that? 

Olney:    It  was  a  preparatory  school  for  college  work.   I  had  some  teachers 
down  there  who  got  me  interested  in  things. 

Fry:     You  must  have  been  around  thirteen  or  fourteen  then? 

Olney:    Something  like  that.   I  remember  the  teacher,  a  Miss  Kingsley,  I  had 
who  taught  me  ancient  history  and  aroused  an  interest  that's  lasted 
me  all  the  rest  of  my  life.   I've  always  been  fascinated  with  the 
subject.   I  do  a  great  deal  of  reading  in  it  still. 

But  by  that  time  I  was  ready  to  go  into  the  tenth  grade,  and  I 
went  to  what  was  known  as  University  High  School,  down  in  Oakland. 
It  was  on  Webster  and  48th  Street.  It  was  the  dream  child  of  some 
body  at  the  University  of  California  in  the  Education  department. 
It  was  set  up  for  teacher  training,  and  education  students  from 
the  University  were  sent  down  there  to  get  training,  practical 
experience,  teaching  at  the  high  school  level.   They  also  had  a 
staff,  of  course,  of  more  experienced  teachers. 

I  must  say  I  thought  the  group  of  high  school  teachers  they 
assembled  there  were  one  of  the  finest  at  the  time.   They  were 
really  excellent,  deeply  interested  in  their  work  and  in  their 
students,  intelligent  people  who  were  trying  new  things,  new 
methods,  new  subjects,  all  sorts  of  things.   It  was  an  experience 
that  I  remember  with  great  pleasure. 

Fry:     Can  you  give  us  an  idea  of  what  sort  of  new  methods  were  tried  out 
on  you?   Something  that  you  remember  especially? 


58 


Olney:    I  remember  a  Miss  Brown  that  we  had  who  taught  history.   She  thought 
that  there  were  enough  interested  students,  at  high  school  level,  to 
actually  try  a  seminar,  a  history  seminar,  and  she  organized  one. 
I  was  fortunate  enough  to  be  included  in  it.   It  was  excellent.  We 
each  developed  a  project,  a  subject  that  we  pursued  ourselves.   I 
took  Chinese  history,  and  spent  hours  and  hours  and  hours  in  the 
public  library  in  Berkeley  running  down  stuff  on  Chinese  history, 
and  then  I  wrote  about  ninety  pages,  outlining  the  history  of  China; 
I  drew  maps  for  it. 

Fry:     You  picked  a  long  history! 

Olney:   Yes.   All  that  sort  of  thing.   I  don't  know  any  other  high  school 
where  they  did  that  sort  of  thing  at  that  time.  We  had  an  English 
teacher,  a  Miss  Merrilees  [spelling  a  guess],  who  taught  us  poetry, 
composition,  things  of  that  kind,  who  was  equally  ingenious.   She 
later  went  to  Stanford,  and  rose  very,  very  high  indeed  in  the 
English  department  there. 

Fry:     Well,  it  sounds  like  from  about  this  time  on  you  were  pretty  fired 
up  yourself. 

Olney:    I  was  in  certain  subjects.   There  were  some  things  that  left  me 

colder  than  a  fish.   I  never  could  do  geometry  and  had  a  rough  time 
with  algebra,  but  there  were  other  things  that — 

Fry:     History  and  English? 

Olney:    I  liked  history  and  English.   That  was  about  it. 

Fry:     How  did  you  feel  about  sciences,  or  did  you  have  many  of  those? 

Olney:   Oh,  we  had  biology.   I  never  could  seem  to  grasp  them  very  well. 
Just  didn't  have  the  mentality  for  it,  I  guess. 

At  the  beginning  of  my  senior  year,  Mr  Boran,  the  principal, 
called  me  into  his  office  and  told  me  my  scholastic  record  was  so 
poor  that  I  could  not  graduate  with  the  rest  of  my  class  in  June. 
The  blessed  teachers  whom  I  have  named  above  heard  about  this  and 
they  took  hold  of  me  and  I  finished  the  year  with,  I  believe,  an 
A-  average  and  did  graduate. 


59 


Boy  Scouting 

Fry:     I  kind  of  got  the  impression  that  you  must  have  learned  a  great  deal 
about  what  we  would  call  biology  or  ecological  biology  on  your  trips 
and  things,  especially  if  you  went  with  someone  who  was  so  well 
acquainted  with  the  area.   Colby's  son — he  probably  knew  a  lot  that 
rubbed  off  on  you.   Am  I  guessing  wrong? 

Olney:   Well,  I  think  you  are.   I  didn't  get  very  much  from  Henry.   I  became 
a  Boy  Scout,  and  we  had  an  unusual  troop  here  in  Berkeley.  We  had  a 
scout  master;  H.C.  Keran  was  his  name.  He  was  a  manual  training 
teacher.  It  was  a  small  troop.  I  have  a  picture  of  us  upstairs. 
There  were  only  about  twenty  of  us,  I  guess,  that  were  in  it.   But 
instead  of  sitting  around  town  and  doing  tests  and  things  of  this 
kind,  we  used  to  take  trips  all  over  the  place.   One  summer  Mr. 
Keran  loaded  us  into  an  old  Pope  Hartford  that  belonged  to  the 
Berkeley  school  system,  and  we  were  going  to  make  our  own  camp  up 
on  the  Gualala  River. 

This  old  car  got  us  as  far  as  Guerneville,  on  the  Russian  River. 
Going  up  a  hill,  it  broke  an  axle.   So  there  we  were.  We  had  to 
back  the  thing  down  and  get  it  towed  in  and,  as  I  say,  it  was  a  Pope 
Hartford,  which  was  pretty  antique  even  then,  and  naturally  there 
weren't  any  parts  for  it.   So  it  had  to  stay  there  for  weeks. 

We  had  to  abandon  going  to  Gualala,  but  what  Mr.  Keran  did  do 
was  to  put  us  in  the  baggage  car  of  the  train  that  used  to  go  down 
the  Russian  River  to  Duncan  Mills.  We  got  off  the  train  at  Duncan 
Mills  and  went  over  to  the  butcher  shop  and  asked  the  butcher  if  he 
had  any  idea  where  we  could  camp  around  there.   He  said,  "Sure. 
You  go  back  across  the  trestle,  and  down  the  river  about  two  hundred 
yards,  and  there's  a  creek  that  comes  in  there.   And  the  creek  is 
good  drinking  water.   It's  a  good  spot." 

So  that's  exactly  what  we  did.  We  stayed  there  for  two  or  three 
weeks.  We  got  a  little  rowboat,  built  a  mast  for  it,  and  sailed  it 
down  to  Jenner,  sailed  it  back.  We  caught  fish,  and  shot  rabbits, 
and  that  was  our  main  meat  supply.   But  we  learned  an  awful  lot 
about  trees,  plants,  fish,  and  animals  from  Mr.  Keran,  not  only 
on  that  one,  but  on  other  trips.  We  were  pretty  self-sufficient. 

Fry:     Yes.   Actually  it  sounds  like  you  were  living  off  the  land. 
Olney:   We  were — well,  not  completely. 
Fry:     But  for  your  meat  and  so  forth. 


60 


Olney:   Sure.  We  did  our  own  cooking,  of  course.   I  remember  it  as  a  great 
pleasure. 

Fry:  It  was  an  unusual  scout  troop! 

Olney:  Yes,  it  was. 

Fry:  You  didn't  spend  all  your  time  raking  leaves  or  tying  knots. 

Olney:  Oh,  no. 

To  become  a  first-class  scout  at  that  time,  the  tests  included 
taking  a  fourteen-mile  hike  by  yourself,  and  then  writing  an  account 
of  what  you  saw.  Another  part  of  it,  another  test,  was  to  make  an 
intelligent  map  of  some  area.   I  took  the  first  test  by  going  up 
Mt.  Tamalpais  with  my  friend  and  fellow  scout,  Henry  Beaumont.   I 
went  over  to  Mill  Valley  and  then  up  to  the  West  Peak  of  Tamalpais, 
and  down  Potrero  Meadows  and  over  to  Rock  Springs  and  back  again, 
and  wrote  an  account  of  it,  which  I  still  have. 

Fry:     Oh,  you  do? 
Olney:   Yes.   [laughter] 

Then,  to  make  a  map,  the  Berkeley  scouts  had  a  camp  over  near 
Lafayette,  and  I  went  up  on  top  of  the  hill  and  drew  a  map  of 
Lafayette,  which  I  also  still  have,  and  it's  one  of  the  funniest 
affairs.   I  didn't  know  how  to  make  conventional  signs  for  the  map, 
so  I  drew  in  houses  and  put  letters  to  indicate  what  they  were.   I 
did  put  a  cross  on  top  of  the  church,  but  I  wrote  in  the  labels  on 
these  things.  Well,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  there  were  so  few 
buildings  in  Lafayette  that  they  are  all  there,  all  the  buildings 
that  one  could  see,  and  they're  all  labeled:  blacksmith  shop, 
saloon,  auditorium,  things  like  that.  I  even  put  in  the  orchards 
with  trees,  and  where  the  fences  were.   You  can  see  the  Oakland, 
Antioch,  and  Eastern  Railway  coming  around,  and  you  can  even  see 
the  creek  that  comes  down  through  Lafayette.  There  were  foot 
bridges  on  that  creek,  crossing  it. 

Fry:     You  got  those  in? 

Olney:   Oh,  yes.  That's  all  in  there,  but  it  certainly  doesn't  look  much 
like  it  does  today. 

Fry:     That  sounds  like  an  interesting  historical  document.   [laughter] 
Do  you  still  have  that,  too? 

Olney:   Yes,  I  still  have  that. 


61 


Fry:  I  think  that  that  ought  to  be  kept  somewhere.  It  would  really  be 
an  interesting  thing  for  someone  who  wants  to  do  something  on  the 
history  of  Lafayette. 

Olney:   I  showed  it  to  Jim  Holliday,  director  of  the  California  Historical 
Society,  not  long  ago  when  he  was  here. 

Fry:     He  lives  over  there. 

Olney:   Yes.  In  fact,  it  includes  the  area  where  his  house  is. 

Fry:     It  does?  You  mapped  way  up  in  the  hills,  too? 

Olney:   Oh,  yes.  Way  up  on  the  top,  so  I  could  look  down  on  this  thing. 
He's  on  the  other  side  from  where  we  were,  but  it  shows  the  ridge 
that  he's  on. 

Fry:     That  would  be  an  interesting  map,  especially  one  that's  drawn  by 
a  third-generation  Olney  member. 

Olney:   That  reminds  me.   You  see,  this  was  during  World  War  I,  and  one  of 

the  things  the  Boy  Scouts  did  was  to  undertake  to  sell  Liberty  Bonds, 
There  were  several  Liberty  Bond  campaigns.   But  the  one  I  remember 
most  is  the  first  one. 

We  actually  did  sell  some  Liberty  Bonds.  We  were  given  forms  to 
fill  out.  I  mean,  we  didn't  collect  money  or  anything  like  that; 
these  were  subscriptions.  We  had  subscription  forms  to  fill  out, 
which  I  still  have.   Also,  we  had  a  pamphlet  which  was  entitled, 
"Every  Scout  to  Save  a  Soldier."  This  was  one  of  George  Creel's 
effusions,  another  one  of  those  propaganda  bits  that  he  put  out. 
[laughter]   I  don't  know  whether  you've  got  that  in  The  Bancroft 
Library,  but  you  ought  to,  because  it's  a  gem! 

Fry:     I'll  bet  we  don't.  That  would  be  fun,  along  with  the  form,  which  is 
a  fairly  straight  document,  I  guess. 

Olney:  I  won  a  medal  from  the  Treasury  Department  for  selling  bonds,  and 
I  still  have  that. 

Fry:     I'll  bet  that  was  pretty  heady  stuff  for  a  Boy  Scout;  you  were 
practically  an  inch  behind  the  front  lines. 

Olney:   Oh,  gosh,  I  should  say  so! 


62 


Outdoor  Adventures  with  a  Friend 


Clney:   My  closest  friend  at  this  time,  and  the  one  who  induced  me  to  join 

the  Boy  Scouts,  was  Leonarde  Keeler.   His  father  was  Charles  Keeler, 
a  well-known  poet,  and  his  mother  was  a  Bunnell,  an  old  Berkeley 
family.   Leonarde' s  mother  had  died  long  before  I  knew  him,  and  he, 
his  father,  and  his  sister  Eloise  were  living  with  his  grandmother, 
Mrs.  Bunnell,  on  Dwight  Way  almost  across  the  street  from  us. 

Leonarde  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant,  adventuresome,  and 
original  boys  I  have  ever  known.   The  Boy  Scouts  and  particularly 
Troop  9  were  just  made  to  order  for  him.   He  was  our  patrol  leader 
and  in  addition  to  the  troop  expeditions  he  stimulated  three  or 
four  of  us  in  the  patrol  to  take  many  overnight  camping  trips  with 
him.  He  surpassed  us  all  in  qualifying  for  merit  badges  and  became 
what  I  believe  was  the  first  Eagle  Scout  in  Berkeley.   For  a  long 
time  he  was  the  only  Eagle  Scout  in  town. 

I  learned  more  about  living  out  of  doors  from  Leonarde  than  from 
any  other  person.   One  winter  during  Christmas  vacation,  Leonarde 
and  I  went  on  a  trapping  expedition  for  a  couple  of  weeks.   The 
territory  we  trapped  was  on  Diamond  Mountain,  west  of  Calistoga  in 
Napa  County. 

Leonarde  had  gotten  hold  of  a  brochure  put  out  by  one  of  the 
fur  companies  in  St.  Louis,  listing  the  going  prices  on  pelts 
including  raccoons,  wild  cats,  coyotes,  and  other  animals  which 
we  knew  were  in  abundance  on  Diamond  Mountain.   So  we  went  out  and 
bought  ourselves  an  assortment  of  suitable  traps.  We  selected 
Diamond  Mountain  because  we  knew  the  country,  having  been  there 
together  the  summer  before,  and  knew  the  animals  were  there. 

To  get  there  from  Berkeley  we  had  to  take  the  ferry  to  San 
Francisco,  then  take  the  Montecello  Steamship  Ferry  to  Vallejo, 
where  we  took  an  electric  train  which  ran  up  the  Napa  Valley  to 
Calistoga.  We  paid  a  man  with  an  automobile  to  drive  us  as  far 
as  he  could  up  Diamond  Mountain  and  then  when  the  mud  got  too  much 
for  his  car  we  carried  all  our  food,  bedding,  traps,  and  rifles  on 
our  backs  up  to  the  log  cabin  we  had  borrowed  for  a  headquarters . 
It  took  several  trips  in  the  rain  to  get  all  our  gear  up  the 
mountain. 

On  subsequent  days  we  laid  out  three  lines  of  traps  located  and 
baited  for  appropriate  animals  according  to  instructions  in  a  book 
we  had  with  us.  The  traps  were  so  far  apart  that  it  took  us  a  full 
day  to  cover  each  line.  This  meant  that  we  were  visiting  each  trap 
about  once  in  three  days. 


63 


Olney:   One  night  we  had  a  terrific  storm  with  strong  wind  and  much  flashing 
of  lightning  and  banging  of  thunder.   This  happened  to  fall  on  the 
very  date  prophesied  for  the  end  of  the  world  by  a  publicity-seeking 
religious  nut  whose  forecast  had  been  a  feature  in  the  newspapers 
for  weeks.   As  Leonarde  and  I  huddled  in  our  sleeping  bags  with  all 
the  uproar  going  on  around  us,  we  kept  asking  each  other  whether 
that  prophet  was  really  as  nutty  as  he  was  supposed  to  be. 

In  checking  our  trap  lines,  we  found  a  number  of  traps  sprung 
but  empty.  Most  were  untouched.  The  coyote  trap  was  never 
approached  and  we  realized  the  coyote  was  beyond  our  skill.  A 
skunk  was  our  first  victim.  We  shot  him  to  get  him  out  of  the 
trap  and  then  skinned  him.  This  was  not  a  success,  as  in  the  process 
we  managed  to  get  the  fur  so  saturated  with  scent  that  the  pelt  was 
useless  and  we  had  to  throw  it  away.  Most  of  our  raccoon  traps  were 
set  in  streams.  To  avoid  leaving  our  scent  on  the  ground  we  would 
enter  the  stream  and  then  walk  upstream  in  the  water,  being  careful 
not  to  touch  any  stone  above  the  surface.   The  trap  was  set  in  a 
pool  or  riffle  two  or  three  inches  below  the  surface.  It  was 
anchored  to  a  long  spike  driven  into  the  bottom  of  the  stream  bed. 
The  bait  was  a  small  fragment  of  mirror  shiny  side  up. 

Several  times  we  found  these  traps  sprung  but  empty.   After 
perhaps  a  week  we  found  one  of  these  traps  sprung  with  something  in 
it.  It  was  the  forepaw  of  a  'coon.  He  had  been  caught  and  then, 
being  unable  to  get  loose,  he  had  gnawed  off  his  own  paw  in  order 
to  get  free.  Leonarde  and  I  looked  at  each  other.  A  realization 
of  the  suffering  we  had  inflicted  and  would  continue  to  inflict  by 
continued  trapping  came  over  us  for  the  first  time.  Why  we  didn't 
realize  this  from  the  beginning  and  before  we  had  spent  our  money 
on  the  traps,  I  do  not  know.   But  we  didn't. 

Leonarde  and  I  did  not  say  very  much  to  each  other  about  this. 
We  just  pulled  up  all  our  traps  and  buried  them  in  a  large  hole 
under  a  log  where  no  one  could  find  or  use  them  again.  That  is  how 
Leonarde  and  I  learned  about  trapping. 


Retribution:  Two  Episodes  with  the  Berkeley  Police 

[Subsequent  to  the  interview,  Mr.  Olney  wrote  out  the  following 
account  to  be  added  to  the  manuscript.] 

Olney:   Leonarde  went  through  high  school  with  us  at  University  High  and 

entered  the  University  of  California  at  Berkeley.   About  this  time, 
he  became  acquainted  with  August  Vollmer,  Berkeley's  Chief  of  Police, 
and  with  Dr.  John  Larson,  who  was  experimenting  with  a  rudimentary 


64 


Olney:  so-called  "lie  detector."  Leonarde  became  very  much  interested 
in  this  and  developed  a  machine  of  his  own  which  was  called  the 
Keeler  Polygraph. 

When  Vollmer  took  a  temporary  leave  of  absence  from  Berkeley 
to  become  acting  Chief  of  Police  of  the  City  of  Los  Angeles  for 
two  or  three  years,  Leonarde  went  with  him.   Sometime  later 
Leonarde  went  to  Chicago  where  he  carried  on  his  polygraph  work 
professionally  in  the  crime  detection  laboratories  of  Northwestern 
University.  He  must  have  been  an  unusually  useful  citizen,  as 
the  City  of  Chicago  honored  him  one  year  with  an  award  for  his 
public  service.   I,  unfortunately,  lost  touch  with  Leonarde  when 
he  went  to  Chicago  and  never  saw  him  again.   He  died  a  good  many 
years  ago. 

It  is  a  rather  curious  fact  that  Leonarde  Keeler,  who  devoted 
most  of  his  life  to  crime  detection,  and  I,  who  spent  so  many  years 
in  law  enforcement  work,  were  both  arrested  and  "grilled"  by  the 
Berkeley  police  once,  while  we  were  still  in  high  school,  because 
they  suspected  us  of  having  robbed  a  Chinaman  at  the  point  of  a  gun. 
I  was  literally  snatched  off  the  street  by  Officer  H.P.  Lee  and 
taken  to  the  Berkeley  Police  Department  for  questioning  about  this 
matter.   Bright  lights  were  shined  in  my  face  and  I  was  questioned 
by  Inspector  Frank  Waterbury — a  very  model  of  a  Keystone  cop. 
Leonarde  was  rounded  up  and  given  a  similar  working  over  because 
I  admitted  that  he  was  with  me  on  what  the  police  regarded  as  the 
day  in  question. 

I  remember  that  the  police  began  their  questioning  of  me  by 
asking  me  where  I  was  on  a  specific  date  two  or  three  weeks  earlier. 
I  had  not  the  foggiest  recollection  and  this  seemed  to  deepen 
Waterbury's  suspicion  against  me.   Finally,  after  many  questions 
and  blank  answers,  he  asked  if  around  that  time  I  had  driven  my 
father's  Cole  Aero  Eight  into  Oakland's  Chinatown.   That  was  a 
question  to  which  I  could  answer  "yes."  Then  I  was  asked  if  I 
had  a  revolver  with  me  and  I  answered  "yes"  to  that  too.   Then  he 
wanted  to  know  who  was  with  me  and  I  told  him  Leonarde  Keeler  and 
Jimmie  Green — another  high  school  classmate.   This  seemed  to  cinch 
the  case,  as  orders  were  issued  to  round  up  Leonarde  and  Jimmie. 
They  could  not  find  Jimmie,  but  Leonarde  was  brought  in  shortly  and 
they  grilled  him  as  they  had  me.  His  story  was  the  same  as  mine. 

We  told  the  police  the  truth,  of  course.   On  the  fatal  day 
Leonarde,  Jimmie  Green,  and  I,  among  many  others,  were  preparing 
for  a  circus  we  were  putting  on  at  our  high  school.  Leonarde  was 
putting  on  a  number  of  magical  disappearances  which  he  performed 
with  a  huge  sheet  of  plate  glass  and  he  wanted  to  shoot  off  a 
blank  with  each  transformation  and  disappearance  in  order  to 
distract  the  audience  at  the  moment  of  change.   Leonarde 's  sister 


65 


Olney:   Eloise,  who  kept  two  or  three  boa  constrictors  as  pets,  was 

putting  on  some  kind  of  a  snake  dance  and  needed  some  incense 
for  atmosphere.   For  the  pistol  we  borrowed  my  father's  38 
revolver  and  we  went  to  Maxwell's  Hardware  on  Fourteenth  Street 
near  Broadway  in  Oakland  to  get  some  blanks.   I  took  the  pistol 
with  me  to  show  to  the  salesman  to  make  sure  that  the  blanks  he 
sold  me  were  suitable  in  that  particular  gun.  Then  to  get  Eloise 
her  incense  we  drove  down  Webster  Street,  stopping  in  front  of  a 
Chinese  store  which  Leonarde  ran  in  to  to  make  the  purchase.   When 
he  came  out  we  drove  to  the  school  without  incident. 

For  a  time  Inspector  Waterbury  seemed  to  regard  our  statements 
as  good  as  a  confession,  but  after  a  lot  of  telephoning  to  the 
Oakland  Police  Department,  Leonarde  and  I  were  told  to  go  home  and 
the  police  would  call  us  when  we  were  wanted. 

Eventually  we  learned  from  Chief  Vollmer,  after  our  parents  had 
raised  cain  about  our  arrest,  what  had  caused  it.   The  Oakland 
police  had  received  a  report  from  some  citizen  that  he  had  seen  a 
big  black  sedan  with  two  boys  with  a  pistol  in  front  of  a  Chinese 
store  when  a  third  boy  ran  out  of  the  store  and  jumped  into  the 
car,  which  drove  away.   The  citizen  witness  supposed  the  store 
had  been  robbed  and  had  taken  the  license  number  of  the  car.   In 
due  course  H.P.  Lee  spotted  the  license  number  of  Father's  car, 
which  I  happened  to  be  driving,  and  ran  me  into  the  police  station 
for  questioning.   This  may  have  been  good  police  work,  but  the 
weakness  in  the  case  against  us  was  that  there  never  was  a  Chinaman 
or  anybody  else  who  had  been  robbed. 

Years  later,  when  I  was  a  deputy  district  attorney  in  Contra 
Costa  County,  we  were  investigating  an  extortion  case  that  slopped 
over  into  Berkeley  and  I  encountered  Inspector  Frank  Waterbury 
once  more.   I  reminded  him  of  the  grilling  he  had  given  us  and 
asked,  "Frank,  do  you  still  believe  Leonarde  Keeler  and  I  robbed 
that  Chinaman?"  His  reply,  which  nearly  stunned  me,  was,  "Oh, 
just  a  boyish  prank."  I  learned  that  there  are  some  people  who 
just  never  can  be  convinced  of  innocence  once  a  suspicion  has 
entered  their  minds. 

At  this  time  I  had  an  opportunity  to  even  the  score  with 
Inspector  Waterbury.   It  was  1929  and  I  was  a  deputy  district 
attorney  of  Contra  Costa  County  with  an  office  in  Richmond.   Early 
one  morning  the  Richmond  police  came  into  my  office  with  a  very 
strange  letter,  which  had  been  recieved  the  day  before  by  a 
Richmond  real  estate  man  named  Persico.   The  letter  had  been  mailed 
in  Florence,  Arizona,  and  contained  a  most  curious  piece  of  paper 
with  the  letter.   The  letter  was  signed,  "The  Black  Feather  Gang." 


66 


Olney:   The  police  told  me  that  some  four  or  five  years  before  Persico  had 
received  a  letter  signed  in  the  name  of  the  Black  Feather  Gang 
demanding  payment  of  ten  thousand  dollars  in  hard  cash  under  threat 
of  being  killed.   The  money  was  to  be  put  in  a  sack  and  placed  at 
night  in  a  certain  railroad  culvert  in  Richmond.   A  sack  full  of 
metal  washers  was  prepared  and  placed  in  the  culvert  according  to 
directions  and  the  police  watched  for  days  for  a  pick-up.   None  was 
ever  made  and  there  was  no  further  communication  from  the  Black 
Feather  Gang  until  this  letter  mailed  to  Persico  from  Arizona. 

The  author  of  the  Arizona  letter  asserted  that  he  had  been  the 
leader  of  the  Black  Feather  Gang,  which  had  had  ten  or  twelve 
members,  now  all  dispersed;  that  the  gang  had  attempted  on  two 
occasions  to  shoot  Persico  because  of  his  failure  to  get  the 
demanded  money  to  them,  but  they  had  been  foiled  both  times  by  a 
woman  who  knew  their  plans  and  who  had  saved  Persico 's  life  by 
deliberately  standing  in  the  line  of  fire  as  a  shield;  that  the 
author  was  awaiting  execution  in  the  state  prison  at  Florence  and 
had  long  since  repented  of  his  gang  activities;  that  he  wanted 
Persico  to  know  that  there  was  no  longer  any  Black  Feather  Gang 
and  that  he  was  no  longer  in  any  danger. 

The  Arizona  letter  added  that  the  woman  who  had  twice  saved 
Persico 's  life  was  named  Mary  Lopez  and  lived  at  an  address  in 
west  Berkeley.   In  case  Persico  had  any  feeling  of  gratitude 
toward  her,  the  Arizona  author  had  enclosed  a  piece  of  paper  which 
would  be  meaningless  and  valueless  to  any  other  person,  but  which 
would  be  understood  by  Mary  Lopez  and  would  be  of  very  great  value 
to  her. 

The  piece  of  paper,  which  had  been  enclosed  with  the  letter, 
appeared  to  have  been  originally  a  sheet  from  an  eight-by-ten  pad. 
It  had  been  torn  in  two  diagonally  and  only  one  piece  was  contained 
with  the  letter.   One  side  of  the  paper  had  a  portion  of  what 
appeared  to  be  a  map.   There  appeared  to  be  a  shore  line,  what 
looked  like  a  ferry  slip,  and  one  or  two  spots  with  special 
markings.   It  was  obvious  that  the  map  had  been  drawn  before  the 
paper  had  been  torn  and  that  more  of  the  map  must  be  on  the 
missing  piece.   The  other  side  of  the  paper  had  lines  of  what 
looked  like  code  writing  and  here  again  the  indications  were  that 
more  of  the  writing  must  be  on  the  missing  piece. 

The  police  had  ascertained  from  Persico  that  he  had  once  known 
a  woman  named  Mary  Lopez  who  many  years  before  had  been  a  tenant 
in  one  of  his  Richmond  apartments.   He  did  not  know  what  had 
become  of  her  but  thought  she  had  moved  to  Berkeley.   Under  the 
circumstances  we  agreed  that  the  police  ought  to  try  to  find  Mary 
Lopez  and  interview  her  about  the  gang  and  about  the  mysterious 
piece  of  paper. 


67 


Olney:   The  police  departed  from  my  office,  but  before  long  they  were  back 
with  Mary  Lopez  in  tow  and  they  were  also  accompanied  by  my  old 
friend  Inspector  Frank  Waterbury  of  the  Berkeley  Police  Department. 
Since  this  part  of  their  investigation  was  in  Berkeley,  protocol 
had  required  that  the  Richmond  officers  call  first  at  the  Berkeley 
Police  Department  to  tell  them  what  they  were  doing  and  Inspector 
Waterbury  had  been  assigned  to  assist  on  the  case. 

Upon  his  assignment  Waterbury  had  immediately  told  the  Richmond 
officers  that  the  Black  Feather  Gang  had  been  well  known  to  the 
Berkeley  police.  He  said  they  were  Chicago  mobsters  who  were  more 
or  less  hiding  out  and  who  had  been  engaging  in  extortion  and 
carrying  on  other  rackets  while  they  were  away  from  their  Chicago 
base.  He  said  that  while  here  they  had  used  a  large  sedan  with  a 
slot  cut  in  the  side  through  which  they  could  fire  a  machine  gun. 
This  astonishing  information  put  the  Richmond  officers  in  a  state 
of  considerable  excitement.   They  thought  they  must  be  on  to  some 
thing  big . 

They  and  Inspector  Waterbury  had  no  trouble  in  finding  Mary 
Lopez  at  the  address  given  in  the  Arizona  letter.   She  was  obviously 
willing  to  talk  freely  about  the  Black  Feather  Gang,  so  the  officers 
brought  her  to  my  office  for  questioning  because  there  was  a 
reporter  available  to  take  her  statement. 

Mary  Lopez  was  a  short,  stolid  Mexican  woman  of  about  forty  years 
of  age  with  only  one  eye.   She  said  she  had  first  met  the  Black 
Feather  Gangsters  at  a  dance  and  then  had  gotten  to  know  them  well 
enough  to  have  attended  many  of  their  gatherings,  social  and  other 
wise.   She  said  she  had  heard  them  plan  the  Persico  extortion  and 
then  plan  to  shoot  Persico  on  two  occasions  when  they  did  not  get 
the  demanded  money.   She  said  she  had  indeed  frustrated  these  plans 
by  getting  in  the  way,  once  on  the  street  and  once  in  a  market,  so 
that  Persico  could  not  be  hit.   She  was  pretty  vague  as  to  the 
reason  for  this  daring  action,  saying  only  that  she  did  not  want  to 
have  her  friends  commit  so  serious  a  crime.   She  said  she  had 
attended  a  number  of  secret  meetings  of  this  gang,  at  one  of  which 
they  had  buried  a  large  cache  of  arms  and  at  another  when  a  large 
amount  of  loot  in  the  form  of  money  had  been  buried. 

When  the  mysterious  paper  that  had  been  enclosed  in  the  Arizona 
letter  was  shown  to  Mary,  she  opened  her  handbag  and  produced  the 
matching  half.  When  the  torn  pieces  were  put  together,  the  diagram 
turned  out  to  be  a  crude  map  of  Point  San  Pablo  and  the  shore  as 
far  south  as  the  Santa  Fe  Ferry.  Mary  seemed  able  to  read  the  code 
writing  on  the  other  side  of  the  paper  without  trouble  and  told  us 
it  was  directions  for  finding  the  arms  cache  and  the  buried  loot, 
the  locations  of  which  also  appeared  on  the  map. 


68 


Olney:   This  put  the  officers  in  a  great  state  of  excitement.   Inspector 
Waterbury  was  most  emphatic  that  since  this  was  loot  of  the  Black 
Feather  Gang,  the  amount  must  be  very  large  indeed  and  our  first 
duty,  now  that  we  could  locate  it,  was  to  find  it  and  make  it 
secure.   It  was  agreed  that  the  search  should  be  made  at  once. 

The  police  got  hold  of  some  picks  and  shovels.   They  also  brought 
along  a  couple  of  pointed  steel  rods  about  twenty  feet  long  which 
they  kept  on  hand  for  probing  in  the  ground  for  buried  bootleg 
liquor.  Who  can  resist  a  search  for  buried  treasure?  I  could  not 
and  so  I  went  along  too.   It  took  several  cars  to  take  us  with  the 
digging  equipment.   I  rode  in  the  first  car  with  Mary  Lopez  and  the 
map.  We  came  first  to  the  place  where  the  cache  of  arms  was  sup 
posed  to  be  buried,  but  nobody  wanted  to  stop  to  look,  although 
Mary  said  she  could  point  out  the  exact  spot.  When  we  got  to  the 
tip  of  Point  San  Pablo,  we  had  to  get  out  of  the  car  and  climb  with 
our  digging  equipment  to  the  top  of  a  steep  hill.   Here,  according 
to  Mary  Lopez  and  the  map,  was  the  spot,  between  a  buckeye  tree  and 
a  boulder  on  the  very  summit  of  the  ridge. 

It  seemed  a  most  unlikely  spot.   The  ground  was  very  hard  and 
looked  as  though  it  had  not  been  disturbed  since  the  beginning  of 
time,  but  Mary  insisted  this  was  the  exact  spot  where  she  had  seen 
the  loot  buried,  so  the  digging  began. 

It  was  now  about  eleven  thirty  in  the  morning  and  it  was  a  hot 
summer  day.   No  one  had  thought  to  bring  any  lunch  or  even  any 
water.   As  I  sat  on  top  of  the  big  boulder  watching  the  digging  and 
watching  Mary  Lopez  from  time  to  time,  the  whole  situation  began  to 
seem  more  and  more  preposterous  to  me.   Finally,  I  announced  I  was 
taking  Mary  Lopez  back  to  my  office  where  I  could  have  more  of  her 
story  taken  down  by  the  reporter.  Most  of  the  Richmond  officers 
decided  to  leave  too.   Frank  Waterbury,  however,  elected  to  stay 
and  dig.   He  was  determined  not  to  let  that  treasure  escape.   So  it 
was  agreed  that  the  officers  who  took  Mary  Lopez  and  me  back  to  town 
would  return  to  help  Frank  Waterbury  with  his  digging  just  as  soon 
as  Mary  had  finished  giving  her  statement. 

When  we  got  to  my  office  and  the  reporter  had  been  called  in,  I 
asked  Mary  Lopez  to  sit  down  on  the  other  side  of  my  desk.   I  said, 
"Mary,  I  don't  believe  this  story  you  have  been  telling  us.   I  don't 
believe  there  ever  was  any  Black  Feather  Gang.   I  believe  you  your 
self  wrote  this  letter  that  I  hold  in  my  hand  even  though  it  was 
mailed  in  Arizona.   I  believe  you  yourself  made  the  map  and  that 
there  never  was  any  arms  cache  or  any  buried  loot.   I  think  it  must 
have  been  you  who  wrote  the  letter  to  Mr.  Persico  some  years  ago 
demanding  the  ten  thousand  dollars  under  threat  of  being  killed. 
Now,  why  are  you  doing  all  these  things?" 


69 


Olney:   "It  is  all  because  of  Mr.  Persico,"  she  said,  and  without  any  urging 
she  launched  into  a  long  story  about  how  Persico,  years  before  when 
she  was  living  in  one  of  his  apartments,  had  cheated  her  out  of  the 
money  she  had  managed  to  save  up  over  a  period  of  years  for  violin 
lessons  for  her  young  son.   It  was  a  pitiful  story  and  one  that 
seemed  easy  to  check  out  even  though  it  had  happened  some  years  back. 

She  said  that  she  had  felt  that  Persico  ought  to  be  made  to  pay 
her  the  money  he  had  taken  from  her  in  this  swindle  and  when  he  had 
refused  to  do  so  she  had  written  the  extortion  note  to  scare  him 
into  putting  up  the  money.   She  had  seen  the  police  watching  the 
railroad  culvert  and  had  realized  her  scheme  to  get  the  money  would 
not  work. 

More  recently  when  she  had  needed  the  money  even  more  she  thought 
she  might  be  able  to  get  Persico  to  give  her  something  if  she  could 
make  him  believe  she  had  saved  his  life  from  the  Black  Feather  Gang. 
So  she  had  written  the  latest  letter  to  Persico  with  the  piece  of 
map  inside  which  she  herself  had  drawn  and  sent  it  to  her  sister  in 
Florence  to  be  mailed  from  there.   She  insisted  her  sister  did  not 
know  what  was  in  it. 

When  this  story  was  fully  tested  and  developed  for  the  reporter's 
record,  I  asked  the  two  Richmond  officers  to  make  without  any  delay 
certain  inquiries  that  would  either  corroborate  or  refute  Mary's 
story  about  what  Persico  had  done  to  her. 

"But  what  about  Inspector  Waterbury?"  they  asked.   "Shouldn't  we 
bring  him  in  first?  He's  probably  still  digging  away  on  Point  San 
Pablo." 

"No,"  I  said,  "The  case  comes  first.   Inspector  Waterbury  will 
have  to  wait  while  these  essential  details  are  run  out." 

They  did  not  demur  to  this  but  went  about  their  business.   I 
think  they  were  inwardly  much  annoyed  with  Waterbury,  as  his  talk 
about  the  Black  Feather  Gang  being  Chicago  mobsters  who  were  well 
known  to  the  Berkeley  Police  had  made  fools  out  of  us  all.   Indeed, 
I  do  not  think  that  any  of  the  Richmond  officers  would  have  fallen 
for  this  story  of  Mary  Lopez  if  they  had  not  been  set  up  for  it  by 
Waterbury 's  boasts  of  his  knowledge  of  the  Black  Feather  Gang. 

The  Richmond  officers  were  not  gone  long  and  they  came  back  with 
evidence  that  established  quite  clearly  that  Mary  Lopez  had  indeed 
been  badly  cheated  by  Persico  in  the  dealings  they  had  had  years 
before. 


70 


Olney:   Now  it  was  time  for  the  officers  to  go  for  Inspector  Waterbury. 
They  brought  him  into  my  office  about  five  thirty  or  six  in  the 
evening.   He  was  obviously  exhausted.   He  had  been  digging  all 
afternoon.  His  hands  were  blistered  and  he  was  terribly  stiff. 
He  had  had  no  lunch  and  nothing  to  drink  until  the  officers  had 
picked  him  up.   They  had  told  him  about  Mary's  confession  on  the 
way  in  and  he  was  boiling  with  rage. 

"Why  didn't  you  come  and  get  me  as  soon  as  you  found  out  this 
story  was  a  fake?"  he  demanded.   "Why  did  you  leave  me  swinging 
that  pick  all  afternoon  like  a  convict  on  a  rock  pile?" 

I  smiled  my  sweetest  smile  at  him. 

"Why,  Inspector,  in  criminal  investigation  the  case  always  has 
to  come  first.   There  were  a  few  details  of  Mary's  confession  that 
just  had  to  be  checked  out  without  delay.  We  knew  you  would  under 
stand  . " 

As  he  glared  at  me  and  I  smiled  at  him,  I  knew  he  understood,  for 
it  was  only  that  very  morning  that  we  had  been  talking  about  my 
arrest  on  suspicion  of  holding  up  a  Chinaman.   I  only  wished  that 
Leonarde  Keeler  could  have  been  present. 


Pomona  College 

[Mr.  Olney 's  written  account  ends  and  the  transcript  of  the  inter 
view  resumes  at  this  point.] 


Fry:     We  have  you,  then,  just  about  up  to  college.  Am  I  leaving  out 

anything?  Were  you  a  maestro  on  the  viola,  or  anything  like  this? 

Olney:   Oh,  no.   I  used  to  play  the  accordion  once  in  a  while,  the  jerker 
type  accordion.   I  learned  to  play  it  only  by  ear.   I  had  a  friend 
who  had  one  and  he  loaned  it  to  me.   But  I'm  left-handed,  and  I 
suppose  this  is  why  this  happened.   I  learned  to  play  the  stupid 
accordion  upside  down.   [laughter]   I'd  play  the  melody  with  the 
left  hand  and  the  bass  with  the  right,  and  I've  never  been  able  to 
reverse  it.   Later  I  did  try  to  play  the  piano  accordion,  but  you 
can't  do  that  upside  down!   [laughter]   I  was  never  a  success  on  the 
piano  accordion. 

Fry:     When  you  went  to  the  University  of  California,  then,  you  were  able 
to  continue  the  same  friendships.  Was  it  much  of  a  change  for  you? 


71 


Olney:   I  went  from  high  school  to  Pomona  College.   The  reason  for  that  was 
my  brother's  experience.  He  was  two  years  older,  and  he  had  gone 
through  the  same  high  school  I  had,  and  he'd  gone  to  the  University 
of  California  in  1919  and  '20.  That  was  the  first  year  the  Univer 
sity  got  hit  with  the  immense  expansion  that  followed  World  War  I. 
Prior  to  that  time  it  had  been  a  pretty  small  kind  of  operation. 
But  they  got  flooded  with  students  and  were  not  adequately  equipped 
either  with  faculty  or  with  buildings  or  anything  else  needed.  My 
brother  had  a  dismal  experience.  He  didn't  like  it  at  all.  And  so 
the  second  year  he  went  to  Pomona,  and  found  he  liked  that  very  much. 
So  I  thought,  and  so  did  my  family,  that  probably  I  would  like  Pomona 
too. 

So  I  went  down  there  with  a  high  school  friend,  Rudolph  ver  Mehr, 
whom  I  had  also  known  in  grammar  and  high  school.  We  went  down 
together,  leaving  San  Francisco  on  the  steamship  Yale.   At  that  time 
the  best  way  to  go  to  Los  Angeles  was  by  ship. 

We  sailed  at  six  in  the  evening  and  we  landed  at  San  Pedro  at 
nine  in  the  morning.   We  had  dinner  on  board.   It  was  an  elegant 
trip.  We  went  out  the  Golden  Gate  and  we  could  see  Santa  Cruz  and 
the  lights  of  Carmel  as  we  went  down.   And  then  my  recollection  is 
that  we  went  inside  the  Channel  Islands.   I'm  not  too  sure  about 
that,  because  we  had  stayed  up  so  late  I  slept  through  that! 
[laughter] 

Then  we  got  to  San  Pedro  and  had  to  take  the  big  red  cars  to  get 
to  Pomona.   They  had  that  Pacific  Electric  system,  for  which  they 
are  now  shedding  tears.   It  was  undoubtedly  the  finest  inter-urban 
system  that  any  metropolitan  area  ever  had.   They  had  their  own 
rights-of-way.   The  tracks  weren't  running  down  the  middle  of  public 
streets  in  most  of  the  area.   It  extended  from  San  Pedro  and  Santa 
Monica  into  downtown  Los  Angeles,  and  then  clear  out  to  Pomona  and 
San  Bernardino  and  over  to  Riverside. 

Fry:     If  they  just  had  that  now! 

Olney:   That's  the  way  we  got  to  Pomona,  taking  the  red  cars  into  the 

station  in  Los  Angeles,  where  we  had  to  change  cars.   It  was  forty- 
five  minutes,  something  like  that,  from  Los  Angeles  to  Claremont, 
where  Pomona  College  is.   We  got  out  there,  and  found  we  had  to 
live  in  a  rooming  house,  very  nice  place.   But  the  day  we  got  there 
it  was  something  like  106°,  so  we  got  off  to  a  red-hot  start. 

Fry:     That's  a  shock  for  someone  who's  lived  in  the  Bay  Area  all  his  life! 
[laughter]   And  spent  summers  in  the  Sierras. 


72 


Olney:   One  thing  I  can  say  for  it  is  it  didn't  have  smog,  at  that  time. 
There  were  these  beautiful  orange  orchards  all  around.   I  enjoyed 
my  year  at  Pomona  very  much.   I  made  a  lot  of  friends  there.   But 
they  were  all  new,  and  I  did  encounter  some  things  about  them  which 
made  me  decide  I'd  much  rather  go  to  Berkeley. 

One  of  the  curious  things  about  it  was  the  student  body  as  a 
whole  was  almost  completely  local.   They  were  people  who'd  all  been 
to  the  same  high  schools  together,  right  near  by,  and  they  knew 
each  other.   Rudy  and  I  were  very  much  outsiders.   I  thought  they 
were  extraordinarily  provincial  in  their  interests.   I  remember  two 
of  the  boys  who  lived  in  our  house  with  us  came  from  Riverside,  and 
neither  of  them  had  ever  been  on  the  north  or  east  side  of  the 
mountains  that  ring  that  Los  Angeles  area.  As  far  as  they  were 
concerned,  nothing  existed  beyond  the  mountains. 

Fry:     The  world  was  the  Los  Angeles  basin,  I  guess. 

Olney:    I  hadn't  been  quite  used  to  that,  so  I  came  up  to  Berkeley  the  next 
year. 


University  of  California 


Fry:     Did  Berkeley  have  students  from  all  over  like  it  does  now? 

Olney:   Oh,  yes.   I  should  say  so.   From  everywhere.   It  always  has,  as 
long  as  I've  known  it.   I  used  to  be  on  the  campus  a  great  deal 
when  I  was  still  in  high  school  and  later.   There  had  always  been 
a  Chinese  club  and  a  Japanese  club  down  on  Etna  Street  where  I  used 
to  do  most  of  my  playing  as  a  small  boy.   Filipinos  had  their  club. 
There  were  students  from  every  sort  of  country.  We  used  to  have 
them  at  our  house .   Some  of  them  came  through  the  YWCA  that  my 
mother  was  much  interested  in,  some  through  our  church,  and  some 
through  the  YMCA.   Do  you  know  Harry  Kingman  on  the  campus? 

Fry:     He  was  head  of  the  Y,  wasn't  he? 

Olney:   Yes,  of  Stiles  Hall.   He  had  been  a  professional  ball  player, 
played  for  the  New  York  Yankees,  I  think.   He  came  to  Berkeley 
when  I  was  still  a  young  boy  and  used  to  come  to  our  house  for 
Sunday  dinners.  He  was  active  in  our  church.   Harry  was  interested 
in  foreign  students  all  his  life.   Later  on  he  was  very  well  known 
for  that;  he  was  even  then.  Harry  and  his  wife,  Ruth,  are  now 
living  on  the  next  block  to  us,  and  I  asked  him  about  his  coming  to 
our  house  when  he  first  came  to  Berkeley.   He  has  no  recollection 
of  it  at  all.  But  I  know  he  did,  several  times. 


73 


Olney:   By  the  time  I  got  to  the  Berkeley  campus  they'd  made  a  great  deal 
of  progress  in  meeting  this  unexpected  emergency  of  the  sudden 
expansion  and  things  were  under  reasonable  control.   But  it  was 
already  a  very  big  place.   I  think  we  had  fourteen  thousand  students 
in  it  at  that  time.  That's  a  big  institution.  The  result  was  that 
there  were  very  few  people  in  my  own  class  that  I  really  knew  at  all 
well.   Now,  at  Pomona,  my  class  was  only  about  thirty-five  and  I 
knew  every  one  of  them  by  name.   This  was  never  true  at  Berkeley. 
The  only  real  way  of  getting  acquainted  was  through  a  fraternity,  or 
through  some  extra-curricular  activities,  like  the  Daily  Cal  or  the 
Blue  and  Gold,  or  something  like  that,  possibly  a  team  or  a  debating 
society,  and  occasionally  somebody  that  you  would  meet  in  class  and 
find  congenial. 

Fry:     So  how  did  you  get  acquainted  with  other  students?  What  groups  did 
you  join? 

Olney:   I  had  an  awful  lot  of  friends,  of  course  mostly  local.   I'm  a  local 
boy  myself.   [laughter]   I  joined  a  fraternity. 

Fry:     Was  it  you  or  your  father  who  was  Beta  Theta  Pi? 
Olney:   That  was  my  father.   I  was  an  Alpha  Delta  Phi. 
Fry:     You  didn't  join  your  father's  fraternity? 

Olney:  No,  the  reason  being  that  so  many  of  my  friends  who  preceded  me  were 
in  Alpha  Delta  Phi,  like  Henry  Colby  and  Scott  Elder,  in  particular, 
and  I  thought  I'd  like  to  be  in  the  same  one. 

One  of  the  more  notable  occurrences  when  I  was  on  the  campus  was 
the  Berkeley  fire  which  took  place  in  September  of  1923.  We  had 
had  several  days  of  very  low  humidity  accompanied  by  a  high  wind 
from  the  north.   Finally  the  wind  broke  a  power  line  in  Wildcat 
Canyon,  starting  a  grass  fire  which  quickly  swept  up  the  ridge  into 
the  eucalyptus  trees  and  then  over  the  ridge  into  the  houses  of 
Berkeley  on  the  west  side  of  the  ridge.   The  fire  swept  through 
north  Berkeley  with  amazing  rapidity  and  eventually  reached  Hearst 
Avenue  on  the  north  side  of  the  University  campus  and  in  places 
reached  Spruce  Street  on  the  west.   There  are  plenty  of  accounts  of 
the  fire  elsewhere,  so  I'm  not  going  to  try  to  cover  it. 

I  first  learned  of  the  fire  while  having  lunch  at  the  Alpha  Delt 
House,  which  was  located  then  on  the  corner  of  Channing  Way  and  Dana 
Street.  We  had  a  very  distinguished  alumnus  in  our  fraternity  named 
Ralph  Merritt  who  had  done  a  great  deal  for  the  fraternity  and  the 
University.   He  owned  a  very  nice  house  on  the  west  side  of  Arch 
Street  opposite  what  are  now  the  grounds  of  the  Pacific  School  of 
Religion.   That  property  was  just  an  empty  hillside  at  the  time. 


74 


Olney:   We  Alpha  Belts  knew  that  the  Merritts  were  in  China  and  when  we 
realized  that  the  fire  was  heading  for  their  house,  we  went  over 
there  to  see  if  we  could  save  it.   It  was  a  stucco  house  with  a 
slate  roof.  We  climbed  on  the  roof  and  put  out  the  falling  embers 
with  wet  sacks.  We  probably  could  have  saved  the  house  if  the  water 
supply  hadn't  given  out.  We  used  all  the  water  in  the  house,  in 
cluding  that  in  the  toilet  bowls,  but  it  was  not  enough. 

When  the  Merritts'  house  finally  caught  fire  and  we  realized  we 
could  not  stop  it,  we  thought  we  should  save  as  much  of  the  furni 
ture  as  we  could.  Accordingly,  we  moved  everything  we  could  lay 
our  hands  on  to  the  empty  hillside  across  the  street.   This  included 
a  grand  piano.   In  our  struggles  to  get  the  piano  across  the  street 
and  up  the  hill  out  of  the  reach  of  the  flames ,  we  managed  to  break 
off  its  rear  leg  so  that  the  piano  finally  came  to  rest  with  its 
front  legs  intact  but  its  rear  end  at  a  crazy  angle  resting  on  the 
ground.   Since  we  had  saved  the  piano  bench  too,  I  put  the  bench  in 
front  of  the  keyboard  and  played  the  piano  for  a  while  since  there 
was  nothing  else  to  do.   Someone  took  my  picture  playing  the  piano 
with  the  burned  out  city  in  the  background.   Later  it  was  published 
in  the  newspapers  and  elsewhere,  with  the  result  that  I  got  a  great 
but  wholly  undeserved  reputation  as  a  piano  player.   Our  efforts  on 
behalf  of  Brother  Merritt  turned  out  to  be  quite  misguided.  We 
should  have  left  all  the  furnishings  in  the  house,  for  they  were 
covered  by  fire  insurance. 

I  had  a  very  undistinguished  career  on  the  Berkeley  campus.   For 
years,  I'd  been  under  the  impression  that  I  was  a  fair-to-middling 
student.   But  when  I  joined  the  marine  corps  in  '42,  they  insisted 
on  a  transcript  of  my  college  records,  and  I  got  it  and  was  abso 
lutely  horrified  by  what  appeared  on  that  record!   [laughter]   If 
I'd  been  my  father,  I  think  I  would  have  raised  cain  about  it.   It 
was  really  pretty  bad.   I  had  completely  forgotten  it.   I  flunked  a 
number  of  courses,  and  it  had  gone  absolutely  out  of  my  head.   If 
you'd  asked  me  in  '42  I'd  have  said,  "I  never  flunked  any  courses," 
but  I  did.   I  had  to  make  them  up,  you  know.   I  was  on  probation 
two  or  three  times  because  of  my  bad  grades. 

My  grandfather  McLean  was  a  member  of  Phi  Beta  Kappa  at  Union 
College,  my  father  was  a  member  of  Phi  Beta  Kappa  -at  California, 
my  son  Warren  was  a  member  at  Amherst,  my  granddaughter  Kim 
Anderson  was  a  Phi  Beta  Kappa  at  Scripps,  but  I  never  came  close. 
Elizabeth  and  I  got  married  while  I  was  in  law  school  and  after 
that  I  got  really  good  grades. 

Fry:     When  did  you  know  that  you  wanted  to  study  law? 


Warren  Olney  III,  19  years  old, 


Warren  Olney,  Jr.,  Mary  McLean  Olney, 
and  their  sons  John  McLean  Olney  and 
Warren  Olney  III  (at  left),  ca.  1909. 


Warren  Olney  III,  rescuer  of  furniture,  Berkeley  Fire  1923. 


75 


Olney:   I  was  always  interested  in  history  and  majored  in  that  from  the 
start,  and  I  had  history  professors  whom  I  enjoyed  very  much. 
Professor  John  James  Van  Nostrand  was  one,  and  then  there  were 
Professor  George  M.  Calhoun  and  Professor  Ivan  Linforth  in  the 
Greek  and  Latin  department,  who  gave  courses  in  English  on  all 
sorts  of  matters  that  related  to  Greece,  such  as  the  Greek  plays, 
the  origins  of  Greek  business  and  commerce,  and  courses  in  Greek 
law,  things  of  this  kind. 

I  got  so  interested  in  Professor  Calhoun  that  I  took  a  lot  of 
his  courses.   They  were  very  small.   There  were  very  few  people 
interested  in  stuff  like  that;  there 'd  be  only  ten  or  fifteen,  and 
I  liked  that.   But  I  had  intended  to  go  into  history,  with  the  hope 
that  I  might  be  an  archeologist.  Not  only  the  historical  interest 
in  it,  but  that  kind  of  deductive  thinking,  trying  to  trace  and 
reconstruct  from  traces,  appeals  to  my  mind.   I  find  I  enjoy  doing 
that  sort  of  thinking  where  there  has  to  be  a  lot  of  imagination 
involved  in  it.   That's  what  an  archeologist  does,  and  besides 
that  it  can  be  very  active.   You  go  to  very  extraordinary  places. 

Fry:     Extremely  physically  demanding. 

Olney:   Sure,  and  that  appealed  to  me.   That's  what  I  intended  to  do. 

But  when  I  was  a  junior,  at  the  end  of  my  junior  year,  my  father 
and  mother  went  to  Europe  and  they  took  me  along  during  the  summer. 
The  year  before,  I  had  renewed  my  childhood  acquaintance  with 
Elizabeth  Bazata,  who  was  going  to  Mills  College,  and  we  made  up 
our  minds  we  wanted  to  get  married,  and  became  engaged.   But  we 
knew  it  was  going  to  be  a  long  engagement.   I  think  that  the  fact 
that  we  were  engaged  was  one  reason  why  the  family  decided  they 
would  take  me  to  Europe!   [laughter]   We  went  to  England  and  to 
France  and  Italy. 

When  the  time  for  school  came  around,  my  mother  and  father  and 
sister  stayed  on,  and  I  came  home  by  myself  to  go  to  school.   On 
the  way  home  I  got  to  thinking  that  it  would  be  my  last  year  in 
college,  and  the  notion  of  being  engaged  and  wanting  to  get  married, 
and  being  in  archeology  and  history,  just  didn't  seem  to  go  together. 
I  knew  that  to  get  into  that  kind  of  work  I  would  first  have  to 
qualify  myself  as  a  teacher  of  history.   I'd  have  to  do  considerable 
teaching.   And  I  had  to  get  a  grounding  and  establish  myself,  and 
it  would  take  a  long  time.   It  would  be  years  and  years  and  years 
before  anybody  would  ever  want  to  pay  me  to  go  out  and  dig  up  any 
thing.   So  I  did  wonder  if  there  wasn't  some  alternative  that  I 
could  follow  that  had  a  prospect  of  getting  married  a  little  earlier 
than  that . 


76 


Olney:    In  canvassing  in  my  own  mind  what  was  available,  I  thought  of  the 
law,  and  knowing  that  my  grandfather  and  father  had  both  been 
lawyers  in  the  very  area  where  I  liked  to  live,  and  I  had  the  same 
name,  I  thought,  very  frankly,  that  that  would  probably  be  an  asset. 

I  didn't  know  anything  about  the  law.   I  knew  nothing  about  it. 
Father  never  talked  about  it.  He  never  urged  me  to  be  a  lawyer,  or 
anything.  He  didn't  discourage  me,  but  he  never  assumed  I  was  going 
to  be  a  lawyer  or  anything  of  the  sort.   But  when  the  time  came  to 
register,  I  thought,  "I'm  an  idiot.  I  ought  to  at  least  find  out 
more  about  it.   It  might  be  something  I'd  like  to  do."   I  consulted 
my  friend  Professor  Calhoun  about  this  and  he  urged  me  to  take  the 
law  courses,  saying  that  he  himself  had  secured  a  law  degree  and 
that  his  legal  background  had  been  of  much  value  to  him  in  his 
historical  studies. 

At  that  time  there  wasn't  a  separate  law  school.   They  had  a 
department  of  jurisprudence,  and  one  could  be  a  major  in  juris 
prudence  as  an  undergraduate.   To  do  that  you  could  take  your  last 
year  of  undergraduate  work  in  the  department  of  jurisprudence  and 
graduate  with  an  AB  degree.   Then,  if  you  took  two  more  years  of 
jurisprudence,  you  could  receive  a  JD  degree  and  be  eligible  to 
take  the  bar  examinations. 

Well,  it  was  made  to  order  for  me,  and  I  felt  that  if  I  tried 
that,  at  least  before  I  graduated  I'd  find  out  whether  it  was  or 
wasn't  for  me.   If  I  didn't  do  it,  I  wouldn't  know  whether  law  was 
something  I  wanted  to  do  or  not.   So  I  registered  as  a  jurisprudence 
major,  and  when  my  parents  came  home  and  discovered  what  I'd  done, 
they  were  absolutely  astonished.   They  couldn't  figure  out  what  in 
the  world  I  had  in  mind.   [laughter]   I  didn't  give  them  much  of  an 
explanation  excepting  to  say,  "Well,  I  thought  before  I  got  out  of 
college  I'd  better  find  out  a  little  more  about  the  law." 

So  I  did  begin  the  study  of  law,  and  was  so  ignorant  that  I 
didn't  know  what  the  words  "defendant"  and  "complainant"  and 
"appellee"  and  "appellant"  meant.   I  had  to  look  them  up  in  the 
dictionary  in  that  first  year.   [laughter] 

Fry:     I  see  that  you  mean  it,  that  your  father  never  talked  about  law  at 
home. 

Olney:   Well,  "plaintiff" — I  knew  what  that  meant  because  it  has  a  plaintive 
sound  to  it,  but  the  rest  of  it — [laughter] 

Fry:     So  you  liked  it,  I  gather.  Was  your  father  pleased  that  you  were 
going  into  law? 


77 


Olney : 

Fry: 
Olney : 
Fry: 
Olney : 


Fry: 
Olney : 


Fry: 
Olney : 

Fry: 
Olney: 


He  never  said.   I  think  he  was.  He  was  very  helpful  to  me,  of 
course,  when  I  was  in  law  school. 

Was  this  when  he  was  on  the  California  Supreme  Court? 

Oh,  no.   This  would  have  been  in  '25. 

'25— this  was  after  he  left.  Yes,  '24  and  '25. 

Yes.   I  remember  when  I  was  in  law  school  we  had  a  big  noise  in 
Alameda  County  over  the  appointment  of  a  new  district  attorney. 
Earl  Warren  was  appointed  district  attorney  then,  and  shortly 
after  that  he  had  to  run.  He  ran  for  office  while  I  was  still  in 
law  school,  against  some  fellow  named  Preston  Higgins.  We  looked 
them  over  and  we  thought  Higgins  was  a  jerk!   We  didn't  know  any 
thing  about  Warren. 

You  mean  the  law  students. 
Yes. 

I  wasn't  too  keen  about  law  school.   I  found  I  could  do  it. 
There  were  some  parts  of  it  that  interested  me.   I  liked  Max 
Radin's  course  in  Roman  law  and  legal  history  very  much.   Every 
body  else  detested  it!   [laughter]   But  it  appealed  to  me.   I 
thought  it  was  excellent.  I  would  like  to  take  it  all  over  again. 
It  would  mean  even  more  to  me  now. 

Right  down  your  alley  in  ancient  history. 

Yes.   I  enjoyed  that.   I  liked  my  fellow  students  in  law  school 
very  much  better  than  any  other  group  that  I'd  ever  studied  with. 
All  of  them  seemed  to  like  each  other  pretty  well. 

It  interests  me  that  you  liked  Max  Radin's  course.   How  did  you  feel 
later  on  when  Earl  Warren  was  attorney  general,  when  the  question 
was  raised  of  Max  Radin's  appointment  to  the  California  Supreme 
Court  in  1940? 

Well,  I  liked  Max  very  much;  he  was  a  very  likeable,  charming  man, 
and  all  that.   But  he  had  a  couple  of  real  strikes  against  him  when 
he  was  nominated.   The  one  that  I  think  was  most  serious  was  not  his 
liberal  views;  it  was  his  writing  to  the  judge,  interceding  in  a 
case  that  the  judge  had  under  consideration.   It  was  a  very  unwise 
thing  to  have  done. 


Fry: 


It  wasn't  that  he  didn't  know  that  he  shouldn't  do  that, 
law  professor! 


He  was  a 


78 


Olney:   Well,  it's  a  curious  kind  of  blind  spot  that  he  exhibited.   I  don't 
mean  to  suggest  at  all  that  there  was  anything  discreditable  about 
his  motives,  or  anything  of  the  sort,  but  he  should  have  had  a 
better  appreciation  of  the  absolute  necessity  for  never  communicat 
ing  secretly  with  a  judge  on  a  matter  he  has  to  consider.   There's 
no  doubt  about  what  he  did.   [laughter]   Oh,  my  gosh! 

It's  sort  of  like  the  thing  that  [Judge  Clement]  Hainesworth 
showed  up  with  [after  President  Nixon  nominated  him  for  the  Supreme 
Court],   [laughter]  You  can't  understand  how  he  could  have  failed 
to  realize  the  possible  consequences  of  making  a  stupid  investment 
in  that  bowling  outfit  when  he'd  had  this  bowling  case  before  him 
and  under  consideration.   I  don't  think  there  was  a  crooked  thought 
that  entered  his  mind  on  that,  but,  boy,  if  he  hasn't  got  any 
better  sense  than  that,  he  can't  very  well  deal  with  some  of  these 
ticklish  problems  facing  the  Supreme  Court. 

Fry:     Was  this  the  main  strike  against  Radin,  or  did  you  say  there  were 
two? 

Olney:   Well,  this  is  the  reason  that  I  always  understood  that  Earl  Warren 
turned  thumbs  down  on  him.  Warren  was  on  that  commission.   It 
surely  wasn't  Radin 's  so-called  liberal  views,  or  espousal  of 
liberal  causes.  Warren  wouldn't  have  turned  him  down  for  that. 

Fry:     Yes,  that  sounds  inconsistent  with  the  rest  of  Warren's  life. 


79 


IV  CONTRA  COSTA  COUNTY  DISTRICT  ATTORNEY'S  OFFICE 
[Interview  3:  August  5,  1970] 

Joining  the  Office 


Stein:   How  did  the  Contra  Costa  County  District  Attorney's  Office  and  the 
Alameda  County  office  compare,  in  terms  of  law  enforcement? 

Olney:    I  think  the  best  way  to  illustrate  some  of  the  differences  in  law 
enforcement  methods  and  conditions  in  Contra  Costa  County  and 
Alameda  County  in  the  1920s  is  to  relate  how  I  happened  to  go  into 
the  two  offices  in  the  first  place. 

I  graduated  from  law  school  in  1927  and  took  my  bar  examination 
in  August  of  that  year.   I  went  into  the  Contra  Costa  County 
District  Attorney's  Office.   I  started  on  October  15,  1927. 

When  I  finished  law  school  and  passed  the  bar,  I  felt  that  my 
education  had  really  only  begun.  While  I  had  met  the  technical 
requirements,  I  was  very,  very  short  on  practical  experience. 
Although  mine  was  not  a  narrow  upbringing,  it  was  sheltered,  and 
I  had  never  had  a  job  in  my  life  until  after  I  got  out  of  law 
school.   I  realized  that  this  meant  that  I  was  very  short  of 
practical  experience  and  in  dealing  with  people.   I  really  knew 
nothing  about  business,  I  knew  nothing  about  government  in  any 
practical  way,  and  on  top  of  that  I  was  a  very  shy  boy.   I  believed 
when  I  got  out  of  law  school  that  if  I  was  ever  going  to  be  a 
lawyer,  I  would  have  to  get  over  that  shyness,  and  I  would  have  to 
learn  to  try  cases.   The  idea  of  trying  cases  and  appearing  in 
court  before  a  jury  was  a  frightening  one  to  me.   I  felt  that  if  I 
didn't  meet  that  at  the  outset,  I  would  be  under  a  very  great  handi 
cap  all  through  my  career. 


80 


Olney:   I  discussed  this  with  my  father,  because  it  seemed  to  me  very 

unlikely  that  I  would  get  much  in  the  way  of  trial  experience  in 
the  kind  of  law  office  that  he  had.  While  they  had  many  cases 
that  went  on  trial,  they  were  large  cases,  quite  important;  they 
were  not  the  things  that  they  could  turn  over  to  a  greenhorn  to 
get  experience  with.  And  my  father  confirmed  that,  that  that  would 
be  the  case. 

I  told  him  that  I  had  thought  the  course  I  ought  to  follow  was 
to  try  to  go  into  a  district  attorney's  office,  because  I  knew 
that  I'd  have  to  try  cases  there.   They'd  be  given  to  me,  and  I'd 
just  have  to  do  it.   I  thought  that  after  some  experience  there  I 
would  try  to  go  into  a  city  attorney's  office,  because  there  you 
work  on  municipal  problems  of  all  sorts  and  kinds,  non-criminal, 
and  I  thought  I  would  get  a  good  view  of  what  local  government  was 
like.  Then  perhaps  later  on  I  would  give  consideration  to  going 
into  private  practice  somewhere.   I  had  always  hoped  I  might 
practice  someday  with  my  father,  because  I  was  very  fond  of  him. 

My  father  told  me  he  thought  that  was  a  wise  course  for  me  to 
follow.  I  asked  him  if  he  had  any  idea  what  district  attorneys ' 
offices  I  might  consider  going  into.   I  knew  that  there  were  a  lot 
of  them  that  I  wouldn't  be  caught  dead  in. 

Stein:   Which  were  those? 

Olney:   Well,  San  Francisco  was  one. 

He  said  that  there  were  two  very  good  offices  that  he  knew  about, 
and  he  knew  the  district  attorneys  in  both  those  offices.   He  doubted 
that  they  had  openings,  but  at  least  I  could  go  and  see  them.   The 
two  offices  were  in  Alameda  County  and  in  Contra  Costa  County.  I 
went  over  to  see  both  the  district  attorneys. 

I  think  I  went  in  to  see  Earl  Warren,  in  Alameda  County,  first. 
I'll  never  forget  it.  The  office  at  that  time  was  in  the  old  court 
house  on  Broadway,  between  Fourth  and  Fifth  Streets,  and  the  district 
attorney's  office  was  up  on  the  second  floor  in  an  annex  to  the  old 
courthouse.  It  was  a  ramshackle  old  wooden  structure,  with  high 
ceilings  and  carpets  on  the  floor,  but  it  was  a  noisy  sort  of  place. 

I  went  in  to  see  Earl  Warren  after  lunch  one  day.  He  greeted 
me — I'd  never  met  him  before — and  sat  me  on  the  opposite  side  of 
the  desk  while  we  had  a  talk.   I  was  absolutely  overwhelmed  with 
the  odor  of  liquor  in  this  place,  which  I  thought  came  from  his 
breath.   [laughter]   Although  he  was  sober  enough,  I  was  convinced 
that  he  must  have  had  a  pretty  alcoholic  kind  of  lunch  to  smell  the 
way  he  did.  Although  in  every  other  respect  our  conversation  was 
most  satisfactory,  I  really  left  there  with  the  impression  that  he 
was  a  lush. 


81 


Olney:   This  was  during  Prohibition,  and  I  knew,  of  course,  that  one  of  the 
district  attorney's  principal  headaches  was  the  enforcement  of  the 
Prohibition  law,  and  I  did  not  want  to  serve  in  the  office  with  a 
district  attorney  who  had  so  little  regard  for  his  own  responsibil 
ities  that  he  wasn't  even  observing  the  law  that  he  was  supposed  to 
enforce.   In  other  words,  I  got  a  very  unfavorable  impression. 

Stein:   That's  quite  a  contrast  to  what  everyone  says  about  him  during 
Prohibition,  isn't  it? 

Olney:   Yes. 

In  due  course  I  went  to  Martinez  and  saw  Archibald  B.  Tinning, 
who  was  the  district  attorney  there,  a  man,  of  course,  who's  not  as 
well  known  as  Earl  Warren,  but  a  very,  very  charming,  delightful 
man,  and  one  of  the  best  district  attorneys  that  I  have  ever 
encountered.  He  was  excellent.   He  was  very  friendly  and  cordial 
too. 

Stein:   How  long  had  he  been  DA? 

Olney:   I  think  he  was  in  his  second  term.  He  had  been  district  attorney 

long  enough  so  that  he  was  that  year  the  president  of  the  California 
District  Attorneys'  Association.  My  recollection  is  that  Earl 
Warren  wasn't  president  of  that  association  until  quite  a  few  years 
later,  although  he  was  always  very  active  in  it. 

Mr.  Tinning  had  been  in  private  practice,  and  he  had  a  private 
practice  all  the  time  he  was  district  attorney.   It  was  a  partner 
ship  known  as  Tinning  and  DeLap .   This  was  expected .   The  salaries 
paid  to  district  attorneys  and  deputies  in  their  offices  were  always 
very  small,  and  it  was  expected  both  that  the  men  in  the  office  and 
the  district  attorney  himself  would  engage  in  private  practice,  and 
that  the  county  would  be  just  another  client,  in  a  sense. 

One  of  the  things  I  observed  about  Mr.  Tinning,  and  have  never 
forgotten,  was  how  scrupulous  he  was  to  avoid  not  only  any  conflict 
of  interest,  but  anything  that  could  possibly  suggest  a  possible 
conflict  between  any  of  his  private  clients  and  the  county  or 
between  himself  and  the  county.   He  was  scrupulous  on  this. 

He  also  had  excellent  concepts  of  a  district  attorney's  respon 
sibilities  for  law  enforcement.   There  was  at  that  time  a  majority 
of  district  attorneys,  I  think,  who  took  the  attitude  that  they  had 
no  responsibility  for  the  police  or  the  sheriff's  office  or  for  law 
enforcement  at  all,  that  their  responsibility  was  nothing  more  than 
to  present  to  the  court  cases  as  they  might  be  brought  to  them  by 
the  investigating  officers.   If  they  didn't  bring  any  cases,  there 
was  nothing  that  they  needed  to  do. 


82 


Olney:   That  was  not  Mr.  Tinning 's  concept  at  all.   He  thought  that  the 

district  attorney  was  under  an  obligation  to  provide  some  leader 
ship  in  the  county  for  law  enforcement.   And  he  did  provide  that 
as  best  he  could  with  the  sheriff  and  the  various  police  chiefs  we 
had. 

Stein:   He  worked  closely  with  them? 

Olney:   Yes,  he  did.  He  was  energetic  and  efficient  in  trying  to  enforce 
the  Prohibition  laws,  which  a  great  many  district  attorneys  were 
not,  and  which  our  sheriff  was  not.  He  had  almost  as  much  trouble 
with  our  sheriff  as  Earl  Warren  was  having  with  his  sheriff  in 
Alameda  County. 

It  was  in  that  connection  that  I  next  came  in  contact  with  Earl 
Warren.  There  was  a  still  that  was  discovered  unexpectedly  on 
Bethel  Island  in  Contra  Costa  County,  a  very  large  one. 

Stein:   How  was  it  discovered? 

Olney:   Some  deputy  sheriff,  as  I  recall,  was  out  there  and  saw  somebody 

run  into  a  barn,  which  aroused  his  suspicion.  He  went  over  to  the 
barn  and  looked  in,  and  here  was  this  big  still  in  operation.  The 
two  or  three  men  who  were  there  scattered.  Two  of  them  were 
arrested,  as  I  recall. 

Then  there  was  an  intensive  investigation  to  try  to  find  out  who 
the  people  were  who  were  responsible  for  the  still.   It  was  dis 
covered  that  the  barn  had  been  leased — that  was  the  usual  thing — 
and  the  land-owner  claimed  he  knew  nothing  about  what  was  going  on. 
But  there  had  been  heavy  shipments  of  blackstrap  molasses  brought 
in  there  that  they  used  to  make  the  liquor  from,  and  there  were 
shipments  of  yeast.  We  picked  up  papers  all  over  the  place — little 
labels  that  gave  us  some  idea  of  where  the  cooperage  had  come  from, 
where  the  copper  columns  and  things  of  that  sort  had  been  made,  and 
we  conducted  an  investigation  to  try  to  put  all  those  pieces 
together . 

The  big  wooden  vats,  we  discovered,  had  apparently  been  made  by 
a  cooper  who  lived  in  Hayward,  and  this  brought  me  down  to  Oakland 
along  with  the  investigators  from  the  Contra  Costa  District 
Attorney's  Office,  to  get  their  assistance  in  trying  to  locate  the 
cooper  and  get  a  statement  from  him.   I  went  in  to  see  Earl  Warren 
about  this,  and  quickly  got  a  very  different  impression,  I  might 
say,  than  I  had  before.   But  I  might  say  that  during  this  intervening 
time  when  I  was  in  Contra  Costa  County  I  couldn't  help,  of  course, 
but  hear  a  great  deal  about  Alameda  County  and  about  Earl  Warren, 
and  I  learned  in  no  time  that  the  impression  that  I  had  gained  was 
absolutely  mistaken;  it  was  the  complete  reverse  of  the  situation, 
[laughter] 


83 


Stein:   Could  you  ever  figure  out  why  you  smelled  liquor  in  the  first  place? 

Olney:    I  certainly  did.  When  I  went  to  work  there,  I  discovered  that  the 
district  attorney's  office  was  doing  most  of  the  raiding  of  the 
bootleggers  and  stills  in  the  county,  and  when  they  would  get  a 
still  they'd  bring  it  in  to  the  courthouse,  and  they  were  storing 
them  in  the  basement.   [laughter]   The  particular  place  where  they 
stored  them  was  in  a  great  big  room  that's  right  under  where  the 
district  attorney  had  his  office.   [laughter] 

Stein:   So  you  were  sitting  right  over  a  still. 

Olney:   And  all  these  fumes  were  coming  up  there  from  the  still.   I  smelled 
it  later,  but  then  I  knew  exactly  what  it  was.   [laughter] 

Stein:   Did  you  ever  tell  Earl  Warren  about  that? 

Olney:   I  didn't  then.   I've  mentioned  it  to  him  in  later  years,  and  he  was 
absolutely  horrified,  because  he  was  completely  unconscious  of  it. 
Apparently  his  secretaries  were,  too,  because  he  said  that  no  one 
had  ever  spoken  to  him  about  it  before.   But  that's  what  happened 
to  me,  and  I  think  I  probably  would  have  gone  to  work  for  him  in 
the  first  place  if  it  hadn't  been  for  those  terrible  odors, 
[laughter] 

But  when  I  went  there  on  this  still  case,  we  received  such  very 
strong,  unstinted  help  in  developing  our  case  that  I  knew  they  were 
playing  the  same  kind  of  a  ball  game  that  we  were  trying  to  play 
ourselves. 

Then  later  on  I  saw  him  in  Eureka  at  a  meeting  of  the  district 
attorneys'  association.   As  I  said,  Archibald  Tinning  was  the 
president  of  it  that  year,  and  I  was  asked  by  him  to  go  up.   There 
were  many  things  that  the  association  discussed,  and  Earl  Warren 
and  his  office  were  quite  active  in  it. 

One  of  the  things  that  came  up  for  discussion  was  a  proposed 
amendment  to  the  penal  code  relating  to  bad  checks.   Up  to  that 
time  the  forgeries  were,  of  course,  punishable,  but  writing  a  check 
knowing  there  were  insufficient  funds  was  not  in  itself  a  penal 
offense.   This  proposed  legislation  would  have  made  it  a  penal 
offense  to  write  a  check  knowing  that  there  were  insufficient  funds 
in  the  bank  to  meet  it.   It  was  a  proposal  strongly  supported  by 
innkeepers  and  hotel-keepers  and  merchants  and  people  of  that  kind. 

I  had  been  asked  by  Mr.  Tinning  to  do  the  research  as  to  whether 
a  statute  of  that  kind  was  constitutional.   And  Harry  Miller,  in 
Earl  Warren's  office,  had  been  asked  to  draw  a  memorandum  on  the 


84 


Olney:    same  thing.  We  both  reported.  We  both  concluded  that  the  statute 
would  be  constitutional,  but  we  differed  as  to  whether  it  was 
desirable.  Harry  Miller  and  Earl  Warren's  office  thought  it  was 
desirable.   I  did  not.   I  thought  it  was  undesirable.  Whether  Mr. 
Tinning  agreed  with  me  or  not,  I  don't  really  recall,  and  he  was 
presiding,  so  he  didn't  take  a  position. 

I  thought  it  was  undesirable,  because  I  thought  it  was  merely 
using  state  machinery  and  law  enforcement  to  substitute  for  a 
reasonable  amount  of  diligence  that  innkeepers  and  merchants  ought 
to  assume  themselves.  However,  the  statute  was  passed,  and  it  is 
the  law  now,  and  has  been  ever  since. 

Stein:   About  what  year  was  this? 

Olney:   This  was  1928.  At  any  rate,  that  report,  I  think,  brought  me  to 

Earl  Warren's  notice,  in  a  way  in  which  I  hadn't  been  before.   He'd 
only  seen  me  when  I  came  to  ask  him  for  a  job. 

When  I  went  to  work  in  Contra  Costa  County,  although  they  allowed 
me  to  go  there,  they  had  no  opening  in  the  office,  and  I  didn't  have 
any  salary.  I  was  there  for  nearly  a  year  without  any  salary. 

Stein:   Was  that  a  common  practice  at  the  time? 

Olney:   It  was,  yes.  You  couldn't  get  into  offices,  and  private  offices 

were  paying  something  like  sixty-five  dollars  a  month.   [laughter] 
I  wasn't  losing  very  much! 


In  Charge  of  the  Richmond  Office 


Olney:   Just  as  I  was  going  to  leave  Martinez  after  the  first  year,  their 

deputy  in  Richmond,  which  was  the  largest  city  in  the  county,  died, 
and  there  was  a  vacancy.  Mr.  Tinning  offered  it  to  me.   I  grabbed 
at  it,  and  had  the  magnificent  salary  of  $225  a  month,  which  was 
really  just  rolling!   I  was  plush  compared  with  what  had  gone 
before.   [laughter] 

Now,  when  they  assigned  me  there,  I  was  all  by  myself.  Up  to 
that  time,  being  in  Martinez,  I  had  company.  Mr.  Tinning  was 
there,  and  his  chief  deputy,  James  Hoey.   Rex  Boyer  was  the  other 
deputy  in  Martinez.   They  were  older  men,  experienced  men,  who  were 
very,  very  helpful  to  me  on  any  practical  problem  that  arose.   But 
there  were  very,  very  few  cases  being  tried.   I  tried  one  jury  case 
in  the  justice  court  in  Walnut  Creek  and  then  I  tried  a  manslaughter 


85 


Olney:   case — no,  it  was  a  driving  while  intoxicated  case;  that  was  it — in 
the  superior  court,  a  jury  case,  while  I  was  there.   But  those  were 
the  only  two  jury  trials  that  I  had  in  the  whole  year. 

Stein:   Were  there  just  the  four  of  you  in  the  office?  The  DA  and  Mr. 
Hoey — 

Olney:   In  that  office.   But  there  was  also  the  office  in  Richmond  where 
the  man  was  who  died.   So  when  I  went  down  to  Richmond  I  was  all 
alone.  Mr.  Tinning 's  partner,  Tony  DeLap,  had  his  offices  on  the 
same  floor  in  the  same  building  and  was  very  generous  with  his  time 
when  I  would  get  stumped,  but  naturally  I  was  reluctant  to  impose 
on  him  very  often.  Most  of  the  time  I  had  to  take  care  of  things 
by  myself.   Richmond  was  the  largest  city  in  the  county  so  that  I 
really  had  quite  a  little  to  do. 

Now,  you  were  asking  me  about  procedures,  and  this  is  what 
occurred  down  there.   I  developed  some  procedures  of  my  own  which 
certainly  worked  very  well,  but  later  when  I  went  to  Alameda  County 
and  would  have  occasion  to  tell  my  new  chief,  Earl  Warren,  what  I 
had  done  in  Richmond,  he  was  horrified.   [laughter]   He  said  that 
it  showed  what  a  very  great  difference  there  was  in  the  counties 
and  in  conditions  in  the  counties;  that  it  would  be  impossible  to 
do  in  Oakland  or  Alameda  County  what  I  had  done  in  Richmond. 

My  office  in  Richmond  was  on  the  fourth  floor  of  the  American 
Trust  Company  building  there,  at  McDonald  and  Tenth.   The  police 
department  was  down  at  Point  Richmond.  We  had  a  justice  court — 
Arthur  Alstrom  was  the  justice  of  the  peace — which  was  in  the  next 
block  to  my  office.   Judge  Alstrom,  like  everyone  else  in  the  legal 
set-up  of  the  county,  was  also  engaged  in  private  practice.   So  he 
was  there  in  his  offices — he  used  his  chambers  for  offices — and  his 
little  courtroom  was  there,  too. 

Now,  I  was  blessed  with  an  excellent  secretary.   Besides  being 
an  ordinary  secretary,  she  was  a  court  reporter,  and  a  very  good 
one.   I  had  learned  by  experience  that  in  handling  criminal  cases, 
nine  times  out  of  ten,  when  persons  are  arrested  they  want  to  talk. 
They're  anxious  to  get  these  matters  off  their  minds,  and  they  want 
to  tell  you  about  it.   They  nearly  always  talk  to  the  police  about 
it,  try  to  explain  why  they  did  it,  what  their  justifications  were. 

The  practice  then  had  been  for  the  police  to  write  these  state 
ments  down  either  in  their  reports,  or  sometimes  they  would  have 
the  statements  signed.   In  due  course  a  preliminary  hearing  would 
be  held  before  the  committing  magistrate,  who  in  this  case  would  be 
Judge  Alstrom.   If  the  evidence  was  sufficient  to  show  that  there 
was  probable  cause  for  believing  that  a  crime  had  been  committed 


86 


Olney:   and  that  the  defendant  had  committed  it,  Judge  Alstrom  would  make 
an  order  holding  the  defendant  to  answer  in  the  superior  court  in 
Martinez.  Then  a  complaint  would  be  filed  against  the  defendant  in 
the  superior  court  and  he  would  be  produced  to  be  arraigned  and  to 
enter  his  plea.  In  those  days  there  was  no  provision  for  providing 
counsel  for  a  defendant  who  was  unable  to  hire  his  own  until  he  got 
to  the  superior  court  for  arraignment.   If  he  was  unable  to  make 
bail,  the  defendant  would  have  to  remain  in  the  miserable  lock-up 
in  the  Richmond  police  station  until  after  the  preliminary  hearing, 
when  he  could  be  transferred  to  the  more  comfortable  county  jail. 
The  lapse  of  time  before  transfer  was  likely  to  be  a  week  or  ten 
days. 

Stein:   Would  that  mean  that  the  defendant  wouldn't  have  an  attorney — 

Olney:   He  wouldn't  have  an  attorney  and  he'd  be  in  jail,  most  of  the  time, 
until  this  was  all  done. 

I  suggested  to  the  police  that  on  matters  of  any  moment,  when 
they  had  somebody  that  they  arrested  who  wanted  to  talk,  that 
instead  of  taking  them  down  to  the  police  station  they'd  best  bring 
them  directly  into  my  office,  and  I'd  take  the  statement  with  my 
secretary.   This  was  done.   They  did  that  as  a  matter  of  routine; 
they'd  bring  them  in,  and  I'd  take  statements. 

Well,  then-Z  realized  that  when  this  was  done,  more  often  than 
not  after  this  would  happen,  they  would  ask  me,  "Can't  I  do  some 
thing  to  get  this  over  with?  Can't  I  get  this  matter  on  its  way?" 
I  would  explain  that  the  law  did  not  permit  a  defendant  to  waive  a 
preliminary  hearing  and  that  we  could  not  have  a  hearing  without 
witnesses  and  getting  the  witnesses  for  the  hearing  was  bound  to 
cause  delay.   However,  there  would  be  no  such  delay  if  the  defendant 
himself  chose  to  take  the  witness  stand  and  to  tell  his  story  under 
oath  so  the  judge  would  have  adequate  evidence  upon  which  to  hold 
the  defendant  to  answer  in  the  superior  court. 

Since  the  defendant  had  just  gotten  through  confessing  to  me, 
he  usually  was  quite  willing  to  repeat  it  all  to  Judge  Alstrom. 
In  such  case  I  would  telephone  the  judge  to  arrange  for  the  hearing 
and  then  down  we  would  go  right  then  and  there  to  his  office  with 
the  court  reporter.   The  judge  always  advised  the  defendant  fully 
as  to  all  his  rights  and  explained  his  situation  to  him  carefully 
and  made  sure  the  defendant  understood  what  was  going  on  and  that 
he  wished  to  take  the  witness  stand  himself  and  testify  under  oath 
as  to  what  had  happened  and  what  he  had  done,  knowing  what  the 
consequences  of  his  testimony  might  be. 

Then  we  would  have  a  preliminary  hearing,  but  it  would  consist 
of  the  defendant's  taking  the  witness  stand  himself,  and  my  examin 
ing  him  under  oath  about  the  case.   The  judge  would  make  his  holding 


87 


Olney:   order  based  on  that,  and  then  the  man  would  be  sent  directly  to 
Martinez,  to  the  county  jail  there,  and  wouldn't  have  to  be  kept 
at  all  in  the  city  lock-up  in  Richmond.   In  due  course  the  defendant 
would  come  up  for  arraignment  in  the  superior  court  in  Martinez,  and 
counsel  would  be  appointed  to  represent  him.   At  the  arraignment 
counsel  was  given  a  copy  of  the  transcript  of  the  preliminary  hear 
ing.   The  transcript,  of  course,  was  nothing  but  the  confession  of 
his  client  made  under  oath  in  open  court. 

Well,  with  our  present  kind  of  procedure,  it  sounds  a  little  bit 
incredible  that  something  like  that  could  have  been  developed,  and 
yet  it  isn't,  really.   The  leading  authority  in  the  United  States 
on  the  subject  of  evidence  at  that  time  was  John  Wigmore.  In  his 
great  work  on  evidence  is  a  lengthy  discussion  of  this  matter  of 
taking  statements  from  people  when  they're  arrested.   He  discussed 
all  the  different  alternatives  that  have  been  tried  in  various  parts 
of  the  world,  and  he  strongly  advocated  a  procedure  very  much  like 
what  I  described,  of  having  an  arrested  man  taken  immediately  before 
a  magistrate  or  a  judge  and  questioned  about  the  crime.  He  would 
have  gone  much  farther,  not  simply  allowed  someone  to  rest  on  the 
Fifth  Amendment,  but  would  have  permitted  a  holding  order  if  anybody 
wanted  to  take  the  Fifth  Amendment,  on  that  alone.   So  it  wasn't  so 
outrageous  as  it  might  seem  in  view  of  more  recent  developments. 

I  followed  that  procedure  in  I  don't  know  how  many  cases,  but  I 
was  only  in  Contra  Costa  County,  I  think,  two  years,  so  I  must  have 
been  in  Richmond  a  year.   I  don't  know  how  many  times  I  did  that, 
but  there  was  no  instance  where  there  was  anything  more  than  an 
outraged  complaint  by  the  lawyer  who  was  eventually  assigned  to  the 
case.   He  felt  he  had  no  alternative  except  to  plead  the  man  guilty 
when  he  got  the  case.  What  was  the  matter  with  making  a  lawyer 
plead  a  guilty  man  guilty?  We  weren't  playing  games.   The  procedure 
was  never  reversed;  it  was  never  even  questioned  on  appeal  in  any 
instance  that  I  know.   The  superior  court  judges  did  not  feel  that 
it  was  unfair,  did  not  object  to  it.   They  could  have,  of  course. 

I  didn't  have  any  feeling  at  the  time,  and  the  truth  is  that  I 
don't  now,  that  I  had  overreached  those  people,  or  done  anything 
that  was  unfair  to  them  or  unjust,  and  there  was  no  instance  that 
I  know  of  where  there  was  anything  like  a  failure  of  justice,  or 
something  of  that  sort  on  it.   However  I  must  say  that  after  a  good 
many  years  more  of  experience,  I  can  see  how  dangerous  it  would  be 
to  institute  a  system  of  that  sort  in  one  of  our  very  busy  courts. 
These  cases  that  I  speak  of  wouldn't  come  up  as  often  as  once  a 
week,  if  that  often. 

When  I  went  to  Alameda  County,  as  I  did  eventually,  I  mentioned 
this  procedure  to  Earl  Warren,  and,  as  I  say,  he  was  horrified  at 
it.   Not  because  he  thought  that  I'd  done  anything  unfair,  or  that 


88 


Olney:    there  had  been  miscarriages  in  any  of  these  cases,  he  didn't  think 

that,  but  he  was  very  apprehensive  about  what  he  regarded  as  dangers 
that  could  crop  up  in  administering  justice  in  a  large  court  with  a 
large  calendar  with  a  procedure  as  informal  as  that. 

Nothing  like  that  was  ever  followed  procedurally  in  Alameda 
County.   There  they  always  had  either  a  grand  jury  indictment  or  a 
preliminary  hearing,  usually  the  latter,  and  the  preliminary  hear 
ings  were  always  conducted  in  a  far  more  formal  way.  The  prosecu 
tion  was  required  to  produce  its  witnesses  and  make  a  showing  of 
probable  cause  with  its  own  witnesses .  They  never  called  the 
defendant  as  a  witness.  He  was  never  put  on  the  stand  unless  his 
own  lawyer  wanted  to  put  him  on  the  stand.  Nothing  like  that  Contra 
Costa  procedure  was  ever  followed. 

Stein:   Wasn't  there  an  amendment  to  the  California  constitution  that  was 
considered  and,  I  think,  passed,  in  about  1934,  that  allowed  a 
defendant  to  plead  guilty  right  at  the  beginning? 

Olney:   Yes,  there  was.  There  were  a  whole  series  of  amendments.  There 
were  major  amendments  in  criminal  procedure  in  1927.   Then  there 
were  more  in  1934,  including  amendments  to  the  [state]  constitution. 
I'm  a  little  uncertain  about  when  it  was  that  the  defendant  was 
first  allowed  to  enter  a  plea  of  guilty  at  the  preliminary  hearing. 

Stein:   I  think  it  was  in  '34. 

Olney:   It  may  be.  I'm  not  clear  about  that.  I'd  have  to  look  it  up. 

Well,  the  reason  for  that  was  plain  enough.  There  are  a  great 
many  people  who  do  not  wish  to  and  cannot  contest  the  matter  of 
their  guilt.   That  means  they  want  to  have  the  machinery  move 
rapidly  so  that  their  cases  can  be  disposed  of  and  if  they're  to 
start  serving  sentences,  they  can  begin  and  get  it  over  with  or 
whatever  other  penalty  there  may  be.  Without  that  provision 
permitting  a  plea  at  the  preliminary  hearing,  it  meant  that  you 
simply  had  to  wait,  and  often  had  to  wait  in  jail,  simply  for  the 
court  to  get  around  to  hearing  your  case,  when  you  didn't  want  to 
contest  it  anyway;  you  weren't  going  to  go  to  trial.   That's  the 
reason  this  was  introduced.  I  don't  remember  the  safeguards  that 
are  in  there  offhand.  I  know  there  are  safeguards.  I  do  recall 
that  you  have  to  have  counsel  in  order  to  enter  the  plea  of  guilty 
at  the  preliminary  examination. 

Stein:  Yes,  you  do.  There  were  safeguards  that  protected  that.  Before 
you  entered  your  plea,  the  magistrate  had  to  send  a  messenger  to 
get  an  attorney  if  you  had  an  attorney  that  you  wanted. 


89 

Olney:   Yes.  Well,  I  don't  remember  the  details  of  it,  but  I  know  there 

were  safeguards  in  there  to  prevent  defendants  without  counsel  being 
overreached.   Whether  they  were  adequate  or  not  is  another  matter. 

I  left  the  Contra  Costa  District  Attorney's  Office  because  I 
thought  I  had  had  as  much  experience  as  I  could  expect  to  get  there. 
I  frankly  was  disappointed  in  not  having  more  trial  experience.   I 
tried  some  cases.   I  had  some  trial  experience,  but  not  as  much  as 
I  hoped  to  get. 

Stein:   How  were  you  trained  when  you  first  came  into  the  Contra  Costa 
County  office? 

Olney:   I  was  simply  trained  by  being  assigned  first  to  writing  legal 

memoranda  on  various  points  for  the  other  lawyers.   I  was  allowed 
to  sit  in  court  and  carry  the  papers  and  whatnot  while  trials  were 
going  on.   Because  I  was  around  there  all  the  time  I  was  asked  to 
help  them  investigate  and  develop  cases  and  prepare  them  for  trial, 
to  interview  witnesses . 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  citation  work.   Complaints  would  be 
made.   It  was  not  necessary  to  make  an  arrest,  so  a  citation  would 
be  issued,  which  was  in  the  form  of  a  letter,  saying  that  a  com 
plaint  had  been  made  and  asking  the  person  accused  to  come  in  at 
such-and-such  a  time  to  show  cause  why  a  warrant  shouldn't  be 
issued.   I  was  asked  to  write  many  of  those  citations,  and  then  to 
interview  the  people  when  they  came  in,  this  kind  of  thing.   And 
then  I  was  given  more  responsibility  as  they  seemed  to  think  I  was 
capable  of  handling  it . 


90 


V  IN  PRIVATE  PRACTICE 


Olney:   I  went  from  the  Contra  Costa  office  to  my  father's  office,  and  went 
into  private  practice  in  that  office,  and  there  did  much  the  same 
thing.  They  assigned  me  to  writing  legal  memoranda  of  various  kinds 
until  they  could  see  what  I  was  capable  of  doing.   They  asked  me  to 
help  prepare  cases  for  trial,  which  I  did. 

The  one  really  interesting  case  that  I  worked  on  over  there 
involved  the  last  of  the  Spanish  grants  in  California.  This  was 
the  grant  of  Mare  Island,  where  the  navy  yard  now  is.  The  govern 
ment  had  brought  suit  against  the  landowners  of  the  swamp  lands 
that  are  north  of  the  highlands  of  Mare  Island.  The  navy  yard 
itself  is  built  on  the  highlands  of  the  island.  To  the  north 
there's  about  ten  miles  of  what  was  originally  swamp.   It's  been 
reclaimed  with  levees  around  it,  and  the  Sears  Point  toll  road  ran 
across  it  around  the  north  end  of  the  Bay  at  that  time.  Although 
those  lands  had  been  occupied  and  used  by  people  who  thought  they 
had  title  to  them  for  many  years,  the  government  finally  brought 
suit  against  them  to  remove  them  and  take  the  lands  on  the  theory 
that  that  part  of  the  area  was  included  in  the  original  Mare  Island 
grant  which  Governor  Alvarado  had  made  during  Mexican  times. 

My  father's  office  represented  the  Sears  Point  road  and  one  of 
the  title  insurance  companies  that  insured  the  title  on  that  property. 
The  Mexican  grant  was  a  grant  of  the  island  by  name  alone,  no  descrip 
tion.  It  simply  was  a  grant  by  the  Mexican  government  of  "Mare 
Island."  Well,  the  question  was,  what  was  "Mare  Island"  at  the  time 
the  grant  was  made?  Now,  the  Mexican  law—Spanish  law,  rather — 
became  important  because  it  was  different  from  common  law  with 
respect  to  where  the  ownership  was  with  high  tide.  Under  Spanish 
law,  there  remains  to  the  sovereign  not  only  the  ocean  and  the  beach, 
but  the  sovereign's  ownership  of  the  beach  goes  to  the  highest  high 
tide.   In  the  common  law  it  goes  only  to  the  median  high  tide. 


91 


Olney : 


Stein: 
Olney : 


Stein: 
Olney : 
Stein: 
Olney : 


Well,  this  meant  that  it  became  of  very  great  importance  to  find 
out  whether  at  maximum  high  tide  water  came  over  the  neck  of  land 
that  separated  the  highlands  from  these  swamp  lands.  If  it  did,  it 
meant  the  government's  title  was  restricted  to  the  highlands.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  it  did  not,  then  the  government  was  correct,  and 
the  swamp  lands  even  under  Spanish  law  would  have  been  part  of  Mare 
Island . 

This  meant  interviewing  all  the  oldest  inhabitants  we  could  find 
who  might  have  some  recollection  as  to  what  the  natural  condition 
was  there  before  the  levees  went  up  and  before  the  road  was  built 
and  all  these  changes  were  made.   I  was  assigned  to  help  out  on 
that,  and  had  a  wonderful  time  traveling  around  talking  to  old 
people,  old  hunters,  and  people  like  that,  who  might  have  some 
recollection  of  it. 


So 


you  did  your  bit  of  oral  history. 


Yes.  But  it  also  involved  my  trying  to  find  a  desueffo  that  might 
throw  some  light  on  it.  Under  the  system  of  grants,  besides  the 
document  like  a  deed  that  describes  what's  granted,  it  was  required 
that  it  be  accompanied  with  a  desueno,  which  is  in  the  nature  of  a 
map  or  a  diagram  to  show  what  the  subject  of  the  grant  is. 

These  original  grants,  or  copies,  and  desuenos  are  all  on  file 
in  the  state  archives.  At  that  time  they  had  never  been  sorted,  or 
indexed,  or  anything.  I  had  the  delightful  assignment  of  going  up 
there  and  looking  at  all  these  desueSos,  not  merely  for  the  one  on 
Mare  Island,  which  probably  didn't  exist,  but  it  was  thought  that 
perhaps  desuenos  of  neighboring  grants  might  well  show  something 
about  Mare  Island,  and  since  they  weren't  indexed,  I  had  to  look  at 
them  all.   I  found  this  quite  an  interesting  thing.  I  believe  that 
this  has  all  been  examined  systematically  now — and  hasn't  a  book 
been  written  on  it? 

I  don't  know. 

Someone  at  Bancroft — I  think  Becker  has  done  this  work. 

I'll  look  that  up. 

Anyway,  the  case  was  carried  on,  but  the  trial  of  it  was  long  after 
I  left  the  office. 


92 


VI  ALAMEDA  COUNTY  DISTRICT  ATTORNEY'S  OFFICE 


Joining  the  Staff 

Olney:   Earl  Warren  always  picked  the  lawyers  to  serve  in  his  district 

attorney's  office  himself  and  my  appointment  was  according  to  form. 
Whenever  word  got  abroad  that  there  was  a  vacancy  in  the  office, 
the  district  attorney  was  besieged  by  applicants,  some  of  whom  had 
political  backing.  Under  such  circumstances  the  applicants  not 
chosen,  as  well  as  their  backers,  were  sure  to  be  disappointed  and 
sometimes  hurt  and  offended  no  matter  who  might  have  been  selected. 
Earl  tried  to  avoid  this  kind  of  situation  as  far  as  possible.  When 
anyone  on  the  staff  expressed  an  intention  to  leave,  Earl  always 
asked  him  to  withhold  any  announcement  until  he  had  had  time  to 
select  a  successor.  Then  he  would  announce  the  resignation  and  the 
appointment  of  a  successor  at  the  same  time,  thus  avoiding  the 
importunities  of  job-seekers  as  well  as  avoiding  giving  offense  to 
them  and  their  backers  by  passing  them  over  in  favor  of  someone  else. 

In  my  case,  Earl  Warren  telephoned  me  at  my  father's  office  some 
time  around  the  end  of  August  or  first  of  September,  1930  to  tell  me 
that  he  anticipated  a  vacancy  in  the  district  attorney's  office  and 
to  ask  if  I  would  be  interested  in  filling  it.  After  discussing  it 
with  him  and  with  my  father,  I  told  him  I  was  indeed  interested  and 
would  accept  the  appointment  if  the  vacancy  developed.  Shortly 
thereafter,  Frank  Ogden,  who  had  been  chief  assistant  district 
attorney,  resigned  to  run  for  judge  of  the  superior  court  and  on 
September  10,  1930,  Earl  Warren  announced  that  I  had  been  appointed 
to  fill  the  resulting  vacancy  in  the  office. 

I  do  not  mean  to  suggest  that  I  was  appointed  chief  assistant  in 
place  of  Frank  Ogden.   Ralph  Hoyt  received  that  appointment  and  there 
were  resulting  promotions  all  the  way  down  the  line.   I  was  brought 
in  to  fill  the  vacancy  at  the  bottom — or  nearly  at  the  bottom. 


93 


Stein:   You  came  into  the  office  on  a  salary? 

Olney:   Oh,  yes.   Oh,  something  very  handsome  like  $170  a  month.   I  know 

it  was  less  than  I'd  gotten  in  Contra  Costa  County.  But  that  salary, 
while  the  amount  sounds  low,  really  wasn't  bad  at  all.  We  could  live 
within  it,  and  did. 


Organization  and  Administration 


Stein:   What  was  Warren's  office  like  at  that  point? 

Olney:    It  was  large  enough  so  that  it  had  to  be  departmentalized.   There 
was  a  civil  as  distinct  from  a  criminal  section  of  the  office,  and 
the  lawyers  who  did  civil  work  did  not  do  criminal  work,  and  vice 
versa,  excepting  as  from  time  to  time  one  would  shift  from  one  to 
the  other,  for  the  purpose  of  experience.  But  it  meant  that  at  one 
time  a  man  wouldn't  have  both  criminal  and  civil  cases  to  handle; 
it  would  be  one  or  the  other. 

Then,  of  course,  it  had  to  be  organized  with  a  small  staff  at  the 
city  hall  in  Oakland.  We  also  had  one  deputy  in  Berkeley  to  handle 
misdemeanors  and  preliminary  hearings,  things  of  this  kind.   They 
were  separate  offices. 

Then  in  the  criminal  work,  which  is  what  interested  me,  that  was 
organized  too.   There  were  certain  lawyers  who  would  be  assigned  to 
try  homicide  cases,  and  there  were  others  who  handled  large  fraud 
cases,  conspiracy  cases,  bank  robbery  cases,  and  cases  like  that. 
Of  course,  the  more  experienced  lawyers  tried  more  difficult  cases. 
If  we  had  more  than  one  big  fraud  case,  and  more  than  one  major 
homicide,  and  the  regular  men  were  occupied  on  that,  the  others — 
somebody  from  somewhere  else  would  take  over.   So  there  was  nothing 
hard  or  fast  about  it. 

The  one  thing  that  was  very  noticeable  about  it,  as  compared  with 
conditions  today,  was  the  rapidity  with  which  we  could  get  to  trial 
and  get  the  case  disposed  of.   Just  last  night,  knowing  that  you  were 
coming,  I  looked  in  a  carton  I  have  that's  got  some  old  transcripts 
of  cases  that  I  was  involved  in.   There's  one  in  there  that  was  a 
conspiracy  of  highj ackers  to  highjack  bootleggers.   They  were  major 
highjackings.   There  must  have  been  half  a  dozen  defendants  in  that 
case,  and  two  major  highjackings  were  involved  in  the  evidence.   It 
was  a  three-day  trial.   It  required  a  great  deal  of  preparation. 
But  that  case  was  brought  to  trial  and  was  disposed  of  in  about 
ninety  days  from  the  time  of  arrest.   I  don't  think  you  can  do  that 
today . 


94 


Stein:   That's  most  unusual  now. 
Olney :   Yes . 

We  had  a  policy — and  this  was  Earl  Warren's  doing  entirely;  and 
he  imbued  the  whole  office  with  it,  and  insisted  on  it — a  policy  of 
moving  the  cases  as  rapidly  as  it  was  possible  to  move  them.   That 
meant  not  asking  for  continuances,  and  objecting  as  far  as  possible 
to  continuances  requested  by  the  defendant,  unless  there  was  some 
really  legitimate  reason  for  it,  that  would  interfere  with  the  fair 
ness  of  the  trial.   But  the  pressure  was  always  kept  on  us — he  kept 
it  on  us — until  it  was  second  nature  to  us  to  see  that  there  was  a 
minimum  of  delay,  and  to  keep  going. 

Now,  this  required  an  awful  lot  of  work.  One  reason  I  don't 
think  they  can  do  it  down  there  today  is  because  I  don't  think  they 
work  that  way.  We  had  to  be  down  at  nine  in  the  office,  and  we  were 
expected  to  stay  at  least  until  five-thirty,  and  to  work  at  night  if 
we  needed  to.  We  worked  every  Saturday — expected  to  do  that  too. 
If  we  didn't  have  inspectors  enough  to  run  around  and  interview  our 
witnesses  to  get  the  case  ready,  we  were  supposed  to  do  that  our 
selves,  and  we  did. 

The  result  was  that  we  could  get  cases  to  trial  rapidly.   Occa 
sionally  something  might  happen — we  might  get  a  four-  or  five-week 
trial  that  would  tie  up  a  whole  department — and  cases  would  begin  to 
back  up.   The  moment  that  started  to  appear,  our  Chief  would  do  what 
ever  was  necessary  to  meet  that.   Sometimes  he  would  ask  the  chief 
justice  [of  the  California  Supreme  Court]  to  assign  a  visiting  judge, 
and  that  was  often  done.   Judge  Murray  from  Madera  County  used  to 
come  up,  and  so  did  Judge  Trabuco  from  Mariposa  County,  because  they 
didn't  have  much  work  down  there  and  they  were  available.   They  would 
come  and  try  cases  when  our  calendar  started  to  get  at  all  congested. 
But  I  know  that  one  of  the  reasons  Earl  Warren's  office  was  so 
successful  was  that  policy,  of  keeping  that  business  moving. 

The  statistics  which  substantiate  the  point  appear  in  a  letter 
which  Ronald  Beattie,  the  chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics,  Cali 
fornia  Department  of  Justice,  wrote  to  me  under  date  of  November  9, 
1970.*  In  1931-1932,  the  time  from  filing  of  the  criminal  charge 


See  Appendix  B . 


95 


Olney:    to  final  disposition  in  Alameda  County  superior  courts  was  thirty- 
four  days — about  half  as  long  as  it  took  in  San  Francisco  and  Los 
Angeles  Counties  during  those  same  years.   Today  it  takes  twice  as 
long  in  Alameda  County  and  the  delay  can  be  attributed,  principally 
at  least,  to  postponement  practices  and  inflexible  calendars. 

Stein:   How  were  decisions  within  the  office  reached? 

Olney:   Well,  I  don't  know  just  what  you  mean  by  that.   I  had  a  very  good 

time  in  that  office.   I  enjoyed  it  immensely,  and  one  of  the  reasons 
was  because  when  one  of  us  was  assigned  to  one  of  these  cases  you 
were  on  your  own.   You  were  independent.   You  could  do  it  the  way 
you  wanted  to  do   it,  the  way  you  thought  it  ought  to  be  done.   You 
didn't  have  somebody  kibbitzing  on  you  all  the  time,  telling  you, 
"Well,  you  ought  to  do  this,  or  that,  or  the  other  thing."  You  could 
always  go  to  the  Chief  or  anybody  else  in  the  office  and  ask  for  some 
advice  or  suggestions,  or  something  of  that  sort,  but  it  was  your 
case,  it  was  your  responsibility,  and  you  handled  it. 

However,  you  had  to  be  prepared  to  be  accountable  for  the  results, 
and  also  for  how  you  conducted  it.   There  must  not  be  any  unfairness, 
any  overreaching;  you  must  not  make  agreements  with  defense  counsel 
that  you  were  not  prepared  to  keep.  You  must  not  make  agreements 
with  them  that  you  would  not  be  prepared  to  read  about  in  the  news 
papers,  and  you  must  be  prepared  to  explain  or  account  for  how  you 
conducted  yourself,  the  investigation,  and  the  trial  of  the  case. 

Decisions  with  respect  to  the  cases  were  made  by  the  lawyers  who 
tried  them,  but  decisions  on  the  policies  of  the  office,  such  as  the 
need  for  promptness  in  trial,  the  need  for  thoroughness  in  prepara 
tion,  the  need  for  restraint  and  dignity  in  making  arguments,  those 
were  set  by  Earl  Warren  personally.   I  don't  mean  to  say  that  the 
decisions  would  have  been  different  under  any  of  the  others,  but 
that  was  simply  the  atmosphere  in  which  we  moved,  and  it  all  emanated 
from  him. 

Stein:   What  was  the  role  of  staff  meetings? 

Olney:   Well,  we  had  these  staff  meetings  regularly  on  Saturday  mornings, 
and  the  first  thing  that  happened  at  one  of  those  meetings  was  a 
report  on  the  recent  decisions  of  the  district  courts  of  appeal  and 
the  state  supreme  court.   Very  rarely  did  we  have  a  United  States 
Supreme  Court  decision  to  discuss.   They  were  mostly  state  decisions, 
but  somebody  had  been  assigned  in  advance.  We  took  it  in  rotation. 
Somebody's  responsibility  was  to  read  all  the  decisions  and  report 
on  them,  explaining  what  they  were,  and  then  having  a  discussion  of 
them.   In  this  way  we  could  keep  reasonably  current,  without  having 
everybody,  separately,  read  all  those  decisions.  We  became  aware  of 
them.   If  next  week  something  came  up,  we  would  realize  there  was 
this  decision,  and  we  would  look  it  up,  that  sort  of  thing. 


96 


Olney:   Now,  in  discussing  those  cases,  especially  reversals,  and  why  the 
reversals  had  taken  place,  we  got  a  great  deal  from  one  another, 
and  also  from  our  Chief  and  his  comments  on  them.   And  where  there 
were  reversals  we  tried  to  see,  well,  what  is  it  that  you  shouldn't 
do?   Is  this  something  we've  been  doing,  or  is  this  something  we 
ought  to  be  on  the  lookout  for,  and  whatnot. 

Some  of  the  lawyers  used  to  think  this  was  sort  of  an  exercise 
in  futility,  because  it  isn't  every  week  that  you  get  a  decision 
that's  worth  discussing  very  much,  and  when  that  was  the  case  there 
would  be  just  enough  of  a  recitation  of  what  the  appellate  courts 
had  decided  to  make  you  familiar  with  it,  and  nothing  much  to  talk 
about.   But  I  thought  they  were  very,  very  valuable  sessions.   I 
think  it  can  be  said  that  these  discussions  of  recent  decisions 
paid  off  because  not  a  single  criminal  conviction  in  Alameda  County 
was  reversed  during  the  years  Earl  Warren  was  district  attorney. 

These  weekly  meetings  also  kept  everybody  in  touch  with  everybody 
else.   It  was  an  occasion  when  many  times  we  would  raise  problems 
of  our  current  trials,  and  discuss  them,  things  that  had  gone  on. 
Sometimes  our  cases  would  have  been  in  the  newspapers,  on  some 
incident,  and  the  participants  would  explain  what  really  happened, 
which  was  usually  vastly  different  from  what  was  in  the  paper, 
[laughter]   But  I'm  sure  it  was  the  machinery  that  made  it  possible 
for  Earl  Warren  to  keep  everything  that  went  on  in  that  office  right 
in  hand  where  he  knew  what  was  going  on,  and  he  was  current,  without 
having  to  police  the  place. 

Stein:  I'm  very  impressed  with  how  he  was  able  to  do  as  much  as  he  did, 
keep  track  of  everything  that  was  going  on  in  the  office,  and  do 
active  work  himself. 

Olney:   Yes,  he  did.   Occasionally  he  tried  cases  himself.   Shortly  before 
I  went  into  his  office,  he  had  tried  a  highly  sensational  murder 
case.   A  man  (Antoine)  had  killed  his  wife,  cut  up  her  body  in 
little  pieces,  burned  it  in  a  stove  while  he  was  cooking  meals  for 
her  babies,  and  buried  parts  of  it  in  a  sack  out  in  the  San  Joaquin 
River.   It  was  really  a  gruesome  case. 

The  main  difficulty  in  it  was  they  couldn't  find  enough  of  the 
body  to  make  a  very  strong  showing  of  the  corpus  delicti.   All  they 
were  able  to  get  was  a  piece  of  bone  about  as  big  as  your  thumbnail 
from  underneath  the  bed,  which  the  doctors  identified  as  a  piece  of 
human  skull.   The  rest  of  it  was  circumstantial.   It  was  a  difficult 
case  to  try  indeed.   They  searched  everywhere  for  the  remains  that 
hadn't  been  consumed  in  the  stove  without  being  able  to  find  them. 
They  didn't  find  them  until  after  the  trial  was  over. 


97 


Stein:   What  was  the  name  of  that  case?  Do  you  remember? 

Olney:   Antoine,  I  think  it  was.   But  the  most  shaking  event  of  that  trial 
was  the  day  after  the  selection  of  the  jury,  when  the  trial  had 
actually  gotten  started  and  it  was  apparent  who  the  foreman  was 
going  to  be.   They  discovered  for  the  first  time  that  that  foreman 
had  himself  stood  trial  for  murder  in  Oregon,  only  about  a  year  or 
a  year  and  a  half  before.  Well,  you  can  imagine  how  they  felt  about 
that.   They  had  to  go  through  the  trial — there  was  nothing  to  do  but 
go  ahead  with  it — as  though  they  knew  nothing  about  it. 

Stein:   Was  that  ever  questioned  later  on  appeal? 

Olney:   When  the  trial  was  over,  they  discovered  that  it  was  the  foreman  who 
was  the  strongest  not  only  for  first  degree,  but  for  the  death 
penalty. 

I  understand  that  Earl  did  talk  with  the  foreman  sometime  after 
the  trial  about  this.   The  foreman  said,  "Well,  yes.   I'd  have  told 
you  if  you'd  asked  me,  but  you  didn't  ask  me  if  I'd  ever  stood  trial. 
I  was  charged  up  there  in  Oregon  and  went  through  the  process,  and 
it  was  that  experience  that  gave  me  very  great  confidence  in  our 
general  system  of  law  enforcement.   I  was  on  a  boat — it  was  a  yacht — 
a  man  fell  over  and  drowned,  and  I  was  accused  of  pushing  him  off. 
We  had  a  trial,  and  it  was  a  fair  trial,  and  I  was  acquitted,  as  I 
should  have  been.   I  don't  think  it's  possible  under  our  system  to 
convict  somebody  for  something  he  didn't  do." 

Anyway,  I  only  mention  that  as  being  the  kind  of  a  case  that  Earl 
Warren  would  be  involved  in  himself.  When  I  was  there,  he  already 
had  a  tremendous  reputation  as  a  trial  lawyer  and  as  a  district 
attorney.   By  that  time,  he  had  many,  many  more  things  to  do  than 
take  care  of  routine  trials. 


Eliminating  Delays  in  Criminal  Prosecutions 
[Interview  4:  March  2,  1971] 

Stein:   Could  you  tell  me  more  about  what  Warren's  policies  were  in  bringing 
cases  to  trial? 

Olney:   Yes,  I  can,  and  I  think  it  was  one  of  the  most  important  aspects  of 
his  administration  as  district  attorney.   The  policy  which  he  fol 
lowed  right  from  the  beginning,  from  the  time  he  became  district 
attorney,  was  against  delays  in  prosecuting  criminal  cases.   The 


98 


Olney:   policy  was  to  prosecute  at  the  earliest  feasible  date.   That  policy 
was  formulated  into  a  rule  which  applied  to  all  of  us  who  were 
deputies  in  the  office  and  particularly  to  the  two  deputies  who 
handled  the  criminal  trial  calendar.   They  were  the  ones  who  set 
the  date  for  trial. 

Stein:   Who  were  they? 

Olney:   When  I  first  went  into  the  office,  it  was  Richard  Chamberlain,  later 
a  superior  court  judge.  He  handled  the  calendar.   Then  it  was 
Theodore  Westphal,  who  was  later  chief  assistant  attorney  general. 
Then  it  was,  after  that,  Leonard  Meltzer.   I  remember  those  three  in 
particular.   I  think  Bob  Hunter  handled  it  for  a  time,  too. 

The  practice  at  that  time  was  for  the  district  attorney,  not  the 
court,  to  handle  the  calendar.   The  office  determined  the  case  dates, 
when  the  cases  would  be  ready  for  trial.   The  judges  were  prepared 
to  try  them  whenever  they  were  ready.   Of  course,  as  against  civil 
litigation,  the  criminal  cases  had  statutory  preferences.   If  the 
criminal  case  was  ready  to  go,  the  court  felt  that  it  must  go;  it 
had  no  alternative — not  that  they  wanted  one — but  to  go  ahead  with 
the  trial.   No  deputy  in  the  office  had  authority  to  request  or 
consent  to  a  continuance  of  a  criminal  trial.  We  were  required  to 
object  to  any  and  all  postponements  unless  we  first  got  the  consent 
of  the  district  attorney  himself.   Consent  was  never  given  excepting 
when  there  was  a  real,  legitimate  need  for  it. 

The  rule  was  so  well  established  by  the  time  I  got  there  that  it 
never  occurred  to  me  to  question  it.   I  just  accepted  it  and  operated 
under  it.   I  didn't  think  much  about  it.   In  later  years,  I  realized 
that  I'd  never  heard  of  any  other  prosecutor's  office  that  had  any 
such  rule.   It  had  a  profound  effect  on  the  office  because  you  can 
not  be  representing  the  prosecution  and  always  saying,  "Your  honor, 
we  will  be  ready  at  the  first  available  date,"  without  being  ready. 
You  have  to  be  ready!   Necessarily,  the  case  must  be  prepared,  and  it 
must  be  prepared  in  a  very  short  time.   This  meant  that  when  cases 
were  assigned  to  us,  we  had  to  go  to  work  on  them  immediately.   This 
is  why  night  work  and  weekend  work  were  just  regular  routine  in  the 
place.   It  is  the  only  way  in  which  any  such  policy  can  be  carried 
out. 

Now,  while  this  was  very  strenuous  and  hard  on  us,  it  had  certain 
great  advantages  as  worksavers.   It  meant  you  only  had  to  do  things 
once.  You  only  had  to  interview  the  witnesses  once.   You  only  had 
to  go  over  the  exhibits  once.   Then  you  went  to  trial.  When  trials 
are  postponed,  a  busy  prosecutor  has  to  lay  the  matter  to  one  side. 
When  he  picks  it  up  again,  nearly  all  the  work  of  preparation  has 
to  be  done  over.   This  is  very  wasteful  of  the  prosecutor's  time  and 


99 


Olney:   effort.   We  never  had  to  do  that.   As  a  general  rule,  we  could 

prepare  the  case,  to  to  trial,  and  put  the  matter  behind  us.  We 
did  not  have  to  juggle  a  dozen  or  so  half -prepared  cases  all  at 
the  same  time. 

Those  policies  had  an  effect  on  the  personnel  of  the  office, 
too;  I  mean  the  kind  of  personnel.  A  regular  old-time  prosecutor 
in  his  forties  or  fifties  just  isn't  going  to  hold  still  for  that 
kind  of  routine.   That  is  altogether  too  demanding  and  too  strenuous. 
They  would  retire  or  resign  and  leave.   Some  of  the  younger  men 
also  found  it  too  demanding.  We  had  a  very  rapid  turnover  of  people 
in  the  office  because  of  this. 

Stein:   Was  this  turnover  going  on  all  the  time? 

Olney:   This  turnover  went  on  all  the  time.  Young  men  would  come  in  order 
to  get  the  experience,  just  as  I  did.   This  was  during  the  Depres 
sion  and  jobs  were  very  hard  to  come  by,  especially  in  legal  work. 
There  were  many  of  us  who  began  by  working  for  nothing  and  then 
would  work  for  a  time  until  we  felt  we  had  had  enough  experience. 
Then  we'd  leave  and  do  something  else.   The  result  was  the  personnel 
in  the  office  was,  on  the  average,  of  a  very  young  age.  We  had  very 
few  of  the  older  lawyers.   There  was  a  constant  looking  for  exper 
ience  and  to  get  it  those  younger  lawyers  were  willing  to  submit  to 
this  kind  of  routine. 


It  has  an  effect,  too,  on  the  feeling  of  the  lawyers  in  the  office 
about  each  other  and  about  the  office.  As  a  group  they  worked  as  a 
team.   There  was  very  little  personal  rivalry  or  ill  feeling  and  far 
more  cooperation  between  people  in  the  office  than  you  ordinarily 
find  in  legal  work.   I  think  this  was  a  result  of  these  policies 
with  respect  to  trials  and  preparation. 

I  used  to  wonder  why  Earl  Warren  adopted  these  policies,  which 
were  really  quite  unusual.   I  have  heard  him  explain  his  reasons 
several  times,  the  last  time  being  within  the  past  few  months.   He 
said  he  became  district  attorney  by  what  was  more  or  less  a  political 
fluke.   He  had  no  real  political  roots  in  Alameda  County.   He  was 
neither  born  here  nor  brought  up  here.  He  came  from  Kern  County. 
He  simply  came  to  Alameda  County  more  or  less  by  accident  after  the 
war  and  became  a  deputy  in  the  district  attorney's  office.  He  was 
not  allied  with  any  political  group  in  Alameda  County.   As  a  deputy, 
he  had  been  assigned  to  work  with  the  board  of  supervisors  of  the 
county  and,  since  they  had  the  appointment  of  Ezra  Decoto's  successor 
as  district  attorney  when  he  resigned,  they  thought  well  enough  of 
Earl  Warren  to  make  him  district  attorney. 

Stein:   But  it  was  still  a  very  close  fight,  wasn't  it? 


100 


Olney:   Well,  there  were  some  of  the  supervisors  who  wanted  someone  else. 

They  wanted  Frank  Shay.   But  having  become  district  attorney,  Warren 
still  had  no  political  foundation.   The  only  chance  he  had  of  sur 
vival  as  a  district  attorney  was  through  excellence  of  performance 
in  the  office.   It  was  the  only  chance  he  had,  and  he  knew  that. 

He  also  became  aware  very  early  when  he  was  district  attorney 
that  there  was  widespread  corruption  in  the  county.   As  the  months 
went  by,  he  realized  that  sooner  or  later  he  was  going  to  be  faced 
with  a  general  graft  prosecution.   There  was  corruption  in  city 
government,  in  county  government.   There  were  many  indications  that 
there  was  corruption  somewhere,  but  no  proofs. 

Now,  he  had  known  before  any  of  these  graft  cases  broke  that 
something  like  that  would  happen  eventually.   One  time  he  was  in 
Sacramento  and  was  talking  with  a  man  named  Franklin  Hichborn 
[leafing  through  a  book]  about  the  possibility  of  his  being  faced 
with  a  serious  graft  prosecution  in  Alameda  County.  Mr.  Hichborn 
asked  Earl  if  he  had  ever  read  Hichborn' s  book  about  the  San  Fran 
cisco  graft  prosecution.   Earl  said  no,  he  had  not.   "Well," 
Hichborn  said,  "I'll  send  you  a  copy.   I  think  you'll  find  it  of 
interest."  And  he  did. 

This  is  the  book.   [showing  it  to  interviewer] 
Stein:   What  is  the  name  of  it? 

Olney:   It's  called  The  System,  As  Uncovered  by  the  San  Francisco  Graft 
Prosecution.   It  was  published  in  1915  and  the  name  of  the  title 
makes  the  subject  self-evident. 

Well,  Earl  Warren  read  that  book  and  it  is  a  very,  very  interest 
ing  account  of  the  extensive  graft  prosecutions  in  San  Francisco 
conducted  by  a  special  prosecutor  named  Francis  J.  Heney  and  what 
happened  to  them.   The  prosecution  got  off  to  a  great  start  and  it 
had  tremendous  backing  in  the  community.   All  the  newspapers 
supported  it.   All  the  business  leaders,  the  churches,  and  so  forth 
were  in  favor  of  it. 

The  prosecution  got  a  whole  series  of  indictments.   At  one  time, 
they  had  every  member  of  the  board  of  supervisors  under  indictment 
for  accepting  bribes.   But  they  did  not  move  those  cases  to  trial. 
When  they  would  try  to  bring  them  to  trial,  the  defense  would  apply 
to  the  supreme  court  or  the  district  court  of  appeals  for  a  writ  on 
this  or  that  or  the  other  thing  and  it  would  take  them  weeks  or 
months  to  brief  the  matter  and  then  the  argument,  and  these  cases 
were  delayed.   There  were  also  many  other  cases  that  delayed. 


101 


Olney:   The  point  of  it  is  that  during  this  long  period  of  delay  the  support 
for  the  graft  prosecution  began  to  dwindle.   People  got  tired  of 
reading  about  it  in  the  paper.   First  one  newspaper  and  then  another 
would  break  away  from  supporting  the  prosecution.   The  people  who 
had  paid  these  bribes  were  very  powerful,  well-to-do  businessmen  in 
the  community.   They  knew  that  if  the  bribe-takers  were  convicted, 
the  bribe-payers  would,  in  all  probability,  be  faced  with  indictment 
and  trial.  They  were  hard  at  work  trying  to  discredit  the  prosecu 
tion  in  every  way.   The  result  was  that  there  was  only  one  conviction 
that  grew  out  of  that  San  Francisco  graft  prosecution  in  spite  of  the 
tremendous  effort  and  the  vast  amount  of  evidence  and  the  number  of 
indictments. 

That  conviction  was  of  Abe  Ruef .   Abe  Ruef  was  the  political 
fixer  and  middleman  in  most  of  these  bribes.   The  only  reason  he 
got  convicted  was  that  during  the  course  of  his  trial — they  finally 
brought  him  to  trial — in  open  court,  in  the  presence  of  the  jury, 
one  of  the  spectators  stood  up  and  shot  Heney,  the  prosecutor, 
through  the  head! 

It  didn't  kill  him,  but  it  knocked  him  out  of  the  case,  of  course, 
and  his  assistant,  Hiram  Johnson,  had  to  take  over  and  complete  the 
case.   That's  where  Hiram  Johnson  made  his  name.   But,  of  course, 
with  a  dramatic  thing  like  that  occurring  in  the  middle  of  the  trial, 
it  may  have  upset  the  jury.   Ruef  was  convicted.   But  he  was  the  only 
one. 

Earl  Warren  says  that  he  learned  a  lot  from  that  San  Francisco 
experience.   He  came  to  realize  that  if  he  was  confronted  with  these 
graft  cases,  he  must  at  all  costs  do  everything  to  keep  them  moving 
and  bring  them  to  trial  promptly  and  not  get  caught  with  the  effects 
of  long,  drawn-out  delays,  because  he  could  see  from  the  nature  of 
the  kind  of  case  that  the  very  same  factors  would  be  at  work  to 
defeat  a  prosecution  in  his  county. 

He  told  me  that  before  any  of  these  cases  had  surfaced,  he  saw 
Chief  Jus.tice  Waste;  he  was  chief  justice  of  the  state  supreme  court 
and  he'd  been  a  judge  in  Alameda  County  and  that  was  why  they  knew 
one  another  well.  Warren  said  he  doubted  that  he  would  have  had  the 
nerve  to  bring  the  matter  up  with  any  other  chief  justice. 

He  told  Chief  Justice  Waste  that  he  was  apprehensive  that  there 
were  going  to  be  a  number  of  serious  graft  cases  in  Alameda  County, 
that  if  there  were  such  cases  he  anticipated  that  the  defense  would 
make  every  effort  to  delay  the  trials  and  would  apply  to  the  court 
for  stays  and  writs  and  things  of  this  kind.  He  said  to  Chief 
Justice  Waste,  "Of  course  they  are  entitled  to  make  applications 
of  that  kind.   But  there  is  one  thing  I  would  like  you  to  know, 


102 

Olney:   and  that  is  that  if  this  occurs,  and  there  are  such  applications, 

I  and  my  office  will  be  ready  for  a  hearing  at  the  earliest  possible 
moment  on  any  of  them.   I  do  hope  that  without  even  bothering  to 
communicate  with  us  you'll  just  set  them  for  immediate  hearing. 
We'll  be  there  and  we'll  be  prepared.  We'll  meet  the  issues." 

Well,  it  was  a  year  or  more  later,  I  guess,  before  these  cases 
broke  at  all.   The  first  big  one  that  came  along  was  Harry  Lesser. 
He  was  a  big  paving  contractor  and  a  real  grafter.  He  had  been 
paying  off  to  city  and  county  officers  all  down  the  line  on  paving 
matters.   So  they  thought  they  would  try  him  first  because  he  was 
probably  the  biggest.  He  was  defended  by  Theodore  Roach,  who  was  a 
very  capable  criminal  lawyer  from  San  Francisco.   Lesser  was  indicted 
in  due  course.   His  case  was  set  for  trial  very  promptly. 

A  few  days  before  the  trial  was  to  begin,  Roach  applied  to  Chief 
Justice  Waste  for  an  order  to  prevent  the  case  from  being  tried 
pending  the  determination  by  the  supreme  court  of  some  claimed 
illegality  in  the  proceedings.   The  story,  as  it  was  related  to  me, 
is  that  Chief  Justice  Waste  looked  over  the  papers  and  said  to  Mr. 
Roach,  "If  these  allegations  can  be  substantiated,  Mr.  Roach,  perhaps 
you  are  entitled  to  relief.   So  I'll  issue  the  restraining  order  and 
we  will  set  it  for  a  hearing." 

Roach  said,  "Thank  you,  your  Honor,  when  will  the  hearing  be?" 

Chief  Justice  Waste  looked  his  calendar  over  and  he  said, 
"Tomorrow  afternoon  at  2:30."  Roach  was  absolutely  taken  aback. 

He  said,  "Mr.  Chief  Justice,  we  can't  possibly  go  that  rapidly. 
The  district  attorney  hasn't  even  been  served  with  these  papers." 

The  Chief  Justice  said,  "You  can  serve  them  this  afternoon,  can't 
you?" 


»v«^  " 


He  said,  "Yes. 

"Well,  you  serve  them  this  afternoon.   At  2:30  tomorrow  we'll 
have  a  hearing . " 

"Oh,"  he  said,  "I  can  hardly  be  ready  myself!" 

"Well,"  the  Chief  Justice  said,  "aren't  you  the  proponent  in  this 
matter?" 

"Oh,  yes." 

"Well,  the  hearing  will  be  at  2:30  tomorrow  afternoon!" 


103 


So  they  served  the  papers  and  at  2:30  the  next  afternoon,  Earl 
Warren  was  over  there  and  they  had  the  hearing.   Of  course,  the 
district  attorney  had  had  to  work  all  night  to  get  ready,  but  they 
were  ready  and  they  were  there  and  they  had  the  hearing.   The  Chief 
Justice  made  his  ruling  right  from  the  bench.   The  application  was 
denied.  Roach  hadn't  been  able  to  substantiate  his  allegations. 
The  case  went  to  trial  without  delay  and  resulted  in  Lesser 's  con 
viction  on  all  counts.   After  that  experience,  defense  counsel  in 
the  graft  cases  did  not  seek  any  more  restraining  orders  to  delay 
the  trials. 

Practical  experiences  like  this  seem  to  have  convinced  Earl 
Warren  that  a  policy  in  favor  of  prompt  trials  and  against  postpone 
ment  and  delay  was  the  only  sound  way  to  run  his  office.   He, 
personally,  made  all  the  necessary  sacrifices  of  time  and  conven 
ience  to  live  up  to  these  policies  and  he  expected  his  deputies  to 
do  the  same. 

Earl  Warren's  office  had  acquired  a  good  reputation  before  I  got 
there  and  I  don't  mean  to  say  that  my  presence  had  anything  to  do 
with  it.  When  I  left,  it  was  still  better  known.   I  believe  in  the 
largest  part  this  was  due  to  these  very  policies  I  am  speaking  about. 
The  office  got  a  good  name  because  it  was  so  efficient  and  so  effec 
tive. 

Another  thing  that  greatly  contributed  to  the  growing  reputation 
of  the  office  was  Earl  Warren's  personal  leadership  of  the  law 
enforcement  agencies  in  the  county  and  through  the  state,  too,  in 
the  state  legislature.  Those  two  things  had  a  great  effect.  But 
the  measure  of  what  these  trial  policies  produced  is  really  in  the 
records  and  statistics  of  the  criminal  cases. 

There  is  an  editorial  that  was  published  in  the  Berkeley  Daily 
Gazette  for  Tuesday,  September  3,  1929,  called  "Getting  Action  on 
Crime."*  In  that  editorial  are  listed  a  half  a  dozen  major  cases 
that  we  had  in  the  office  during  that  year,  mostly  murder  cases 
and  bank  robbery  cases,  which  show  that  the  cases  were  prosecuted 
successfully,  with  vigorous  defense  from  the  best  counsel  in  the 
community,  within  less  than  thirty  days  from  the  time  of  indictment 
until  the  completion  of  the  case.   Now,  those  cases  were  not  excep 
tional.  The  average  in  the  cases  was  about  that. 


See  Appendix  C. 


104 


Investigative  Staff 

Olney:   Now,  there  are  some  other  things  about  the  effect  of  trying  to 

prepare  and  present  cases  as  promptly  as  that  that  had  an  effect 
on  the  office,  that  are  worth  mentioning. 

A  lawyer  who  has  to  prepare  a  criminal  case  can't  do  it  all  by 
himself.   He  has  to  have  some  assistance.   He  has  to  have  some 
investigators.   The  Alameda  County  District  Attorney's  Office  had 
a  staff  of  investigators — inspectors,  we  used  to  call  them — and 
their  assignment  was  to  assist  the  lawyers  in  getting  these  cases 
ready  for  trial.   Since  we  had  to  work  under  such  pressure  all  the 
time,  our  relationships — I  say  "our";  I  mean  the  lawyers'  relation 
ships  with  the  inspectors — became  very  close,  very  personal,  and 
frequently  we  accompanied  the  inspectors  on  their  investigations, 
actually  talking  with  the  witnesses  at  the  same  time. 

In  the  cases  that  I  tried — I  don't  know  about  the  other  lawyers; 
I  think  they  probably  did  the  same  thing — I  always  went  to  the 
scene,  wherever  it  might  be,  in  advance  of  the  trial,  and  looked  it 
over. 

Now,  that  staff  of  investigators  was  quite  an  unusual  group  in 
that  they  were  very  hardworking  and  very  conscientious  and  could 
do  their  work  well.   But  they  were  not  trained  in  the  sense  that  we 
now  talk  about  training  in  criminology  and  police  work  and  things 
of  that  kind.   Such  background  as  they  had  they  got  just  by  practical 
experience. 

The  inspectors  were  organized  into  a  bureau.   The  captain  was 
George  J.  Helms.   Captain  Helms  had  become  an  inspector  for  the 
district  attorney  one  or  two  or  maybe  three  district  attorneys 
before  Earl  Warren.   He  had  been  a  port  captain  for  the  city  of 
San  Francisco,  but  was  asked  by  the  Alameda  County  District 
Attorney's  Office  to  investigate  a  county  assessor  who  was  taking 
bribes  from  a  local  water  company.   Captain  Helms  developed  the 
case  and  the  assessor  was  arrested,  prosecuted,  and  convicted. 
The  district  attorney  here  appreciated  the  service  and  asked  him 
to  stay  on  and  continue  to  work  for  him,  and  he  did.   Now,  how 
many  men  there  were  in  the  inspectors  at  the  time  Earl  Warren  took 
office,  I  don't  know.   There  were  several,  I  think. 

Stein:   I  think  there  were  three. 
Olney:   Well,  I  don't  remember. 


105 


Stein:   There  was  a  man  named  Laughrey  and  another  man,  both  of  whom  left 
fairly  soon  after  Warren  took  over. 

Olney:   Well,  among  those  that  I  knew,  that  were  there  in  my  time,  they  had 
a  lieutenant,  Oscar  J.  Jahnsen.   Oscar  had  a  background  of  investi 
gative  experience  with  the  Coast  Guard  before  he  came.  He  was  a 
very  energetic  and  ingenious  investigator. 

Then  there  was  Charles  R.  Blagborne.   I  don't  recall  his  back 
ground.   He  was  older  than  most  of  the  investigators  we  had.   I 
believe  that  he  had  had  Oakland  Police  Department  experience.   He 
worked  on  many  fraud  cases  that  I  had. 

Then  there  was  Chester  B.  Flint,  who  is  still  living.  He  came 
from  the  Oakland  Police  Department.   A  very  conscientious,  able  man, 
he  was  in  most  active  charge  of  the  raids  on  Chinese  gamblers  and 
lotteries  and  houses  of  prostitution  and  bootleggers  in  the  Emery 
ville  area  during  those  early  days.   Later  on,  in  '34  and  '35,  he 
was  assigned  to  intelligence  work  in  the  office. 

Then  there  was  George  G.  Hard,  who  had  a  background  of  federal 
Prohibition  enforcement  experience.   George  came  from  Montana 
originally.  He  taught  me  how  to  pack  a  mule. 

Then  there  was  George  Henningsen.   He  lived  in  Hayward.  He  had 
been  a  contractor  and  built  houses  and  things  of  that  kind  before 
he  got  into  the  district  attorney's  office.   Another  fellow  with  a 
similar  background  was  Howard  E.  Tupper,  who  had  been  a  carpenter. 
Now,  both  those  men  were  quite  adequate  for  the  type  of  investigative 
work  that  we  needed  to  have  done.   Later  on  we  got  a  younger  man, 
Louis  J.  Neeland.   He  had  been  an  officer  of  a  labor  union,  but  he 
became  an  inspector.   He  was  a  very  good  one. 

The  bureau  was  not  overly  organized.   As  cases  were  assigned  to 
us  lawyers,  and  we  needed  help  in  getting  them  ready,  we  would  go 
and  see  Captain  Helms  and  tell  him  what  the  case  was,  and  he  would 
assign  one  or  another  of  these  men  to  work  on  the  case  with  us,  and 
we  worked  on  them  together  sometimes.   If  the  case  was  a  large  one, 
there  would  be  more  than  one  person  assigned  to  work  on  it.   The 
coordination  between  the  lawyers  and  the  investigators  on  this  sort 
of  arrangement  was  very  smooth.  We  never  had  any  problem  with  those 
men.   They  did  everything  we  ever  asked  them  to  do  and  more. 

They  took  a  great  interest  in  their  work.   Because  their  cases 
were  being  tried  promptly,  they  were  usually  in  court  where  they 
could  see  the  results  of  their  efforts.   This,  I  am  sure,  contributed 
to  their  understanding  of  a  trial  lawyer's  problems  and  to  the 
respect  that  they  came  to  have  for  the  deputies  who  had  presented 
the  cases  they  had  investigated  or  prepared.   They  took  pride  in 
making  intelligent,  painstaking  investigations  and  preparing  coherent, 
unambiguous  reports.   They  scorned  trickiness  or  any  unfairness  to  a 


106 


Olney:   defendant  because  they  were  trained  that  way  by  Captain  Helms  and 

because  they  were  able  to  see  in  their  attendance  in  court  that  such 
methods  nearly  always  backfire  in  the  trial  of  a  case. 

Stein:   Did  certain  inspectors  tend  to  work  with  certain  deputies?   Did  they 
specialize  at  all? 

Olney:   Oh,  yes.   That  reminds  me,  there's  one  man  who  was  there  when  I  first 
went  in  whom  I  failed  to  mention  and  should  by  all  means .   This  was 
Harry  Piper.  He  was  an  investigator  and  he  was  assigned  to  the 
homicide  cases  primarily  and  was  working  with  Charlie  Wehr.  He 
worked  with  Charlie  and  me  for  quite  a  time.   He  was  a  tiny  little 
fellow  and  he  had  a  screwed-up  face  that  had  almost  an  oriental 
cast.   He  could  pass  himself  off  as  Japanese,  and  did  on  occasion, 
[laughter] 

He  was  a  most  remarkable  man  in  locating  witnesses.   He  had  a 
flair  that  exceeded  the  ability  of  anybody  else  we  had.   If  we 
wanted  to  find  somebody,  Harry  could  always  find  him. 

His  background  was  that  of  a  jockey.   He  told  us  that  he  had 
ridden  a  horse  in  the  derby  in  England,  which  we  didn't  believe. 
But  somebody  realized  that  the  World  Almanac  carried  all  the  derby 
riders  for  that  race  and  we  looked  it  up.   Sure  enough!   There  he 
was.   [laughter]   So  he  had  ridden  in  that  race. 

He  lasted  only  about  a  year  and  a  half,  I  think,  after  I  came  to 
the  office.   He  was  driving  a  county  car  one  night  and  he  managed 
to  get  drunk,  which  was  clear  out  of  bounds.   He  drove  the  county 
car  off  the  road  and  had  to  get  pulled  out.  When  this  was  learned, 
he  got  fired.   Then  he  took  a  job  running  the  Berkeley  City  Pound. 
I  don't  know  what's  happened  to  him  after  that. 

There  wasn't  any  real  specialization  among  those  investigators 
excepting  on  homicides.   After  Harry  left,  George  Hard  was  usually 
assigned  to  homicide  cases.   But  George  might  be  working  on  one  and 
we'd  have  another  homicide.   So  they'd  have  to  assign  someone  else 
and,  furthermore,  we  didn't  have  homicide  cases  all  the  time,  so 
George  would  frequently  be  working  on  other  cases  as  they  came  along. 


Deputies  on  Call 


Stein:   You  mentioned  yesterday  that  the  deputies  were  organized  in  such  a 
way  that  there  was  always  someone  who  could  be  called  on  to  take 
statements . 


107 


Olney:   Yes,  that  is  true.   This  was  particularly  the  case  in  connection  with 
the  murders,  the  homicides.   There  were  always  two  of  us  who  were 
assigned  to  those  cases.   One  of  us  always  had  to  be  in  town  and  be 
available  on  telephone  call,  night  and  day.   It  was  usually  the 
junior  member  of  the  team  that  stayed,  whose  phone  was  the  one  that 
was  given. 

Stein:   You  were  in  that  position? 

Olney:   Yes,  I  was.   It  was  a  regular  fireman's  life.  The  phone  would  ring 
any  time.   But  that  was  what  went  with  the  job,  and  gosh  knows  it 
was  interesting.   For  somebody  who  was  looking  for  experience  as  I 
was,  I  certainly  got  that,  in  large  doses! 

But  it  had  its  drawbacks.  It  was  very  rough  on  family  life  and 
even  on  vacations.  When  the  1934  strike  came  along,  I  had  been 
planning  a  pack  trip  for  many  months  with  my  wife  and  four  friends — 
two  friends  and  their  wives.  We  were  going  to  do  our  own  packing. 
I  made  all  the  arrangements  and  worked  the  trip  out.  We  were  going 
up  to  Garnet  Lake.   But  the  strike  came  and  they  all  left  and  I  had 
to  stay  home.   [laughter]   I  lost  out  on  over  a  week.   Only  after  a 
week  I  could  get  permission  to  go;  I  could  go  up  and  join  them. 

Stein:   Well,  at  least  you  got  some  of  the  trip  in. 
Olney:   Yes,  I  got  some  in. 


A  Complex  Fraud  Case 

Stein:   One  of  the  questions  I  wanted  to  ask  was,  when  you  were  talking  about 
cases  being  brought  to  trial  very  quickly,  there  were  always,  of 
course,  cases  which  were  going  to  drag  on  just  because  they  were 
large  and  complicated,  like  the  Sheriff  Becker  graft  case  and  Point 
Lobos  murder  case. 

Olney:   Well,  I  don't  mean  to  imply  that  we  could  dispose  of  every  case 
within  thirty  days  of  the  time  the  offense  was  committed.   There 
were  many  cases  where  at  the  outset  we  didn't  know  who  was  guilty, 
didn't  have  the  evidence,  and  it  would  take  many,  many  months  to 
develop  it. 

There  were  fraud  cases,  for  example,  where  we  were  confident  that 
fraud  was  being  committed  but  where  we  had  no  real  complainant.   A 
good  example  of  it  is  the  Cox  Chemical  case.   There  was  a  man  named 
Cox  who  had  a  chemical  laboratory  in  a  canyon  back  of  Hayward.   He 


108 


Olney:    claimed  that  he  had  invented  a  formula  which  could  be  put  into 
crude  oil,  or  crude  oil  mixed  with  water,  and  it  would  separate 
out  the  gasoline  without  any  cracking  process,  and  produce  a  better 
grade  and  more  gasoline  than  the  oil  companies  could  do  with  their 
process.  He  claimed  that  this  was  so  efficient  and  so  revolution 
ary  that  the  oil  companies  were  trying  to  put  him  out  of  business. 
He  went  around  selling  stock  in  this  company. 

Well,  we  were  convinced  it  was  a  fraud.  We  couldn't  prove  it. 
But  that  went  on  for  years  and  we  couldn't  make  a  case  because  we 
couldn't  get  anybody  to  complain.   The  people  who  bought  the  stock 
were  sold  on  the  idea  and  they  wouldn't  be  witnesses  against  him 
or  testify  as  to  the  representations  he  made  or  whatnot.  With  cases 
like  that,  a  prosecutor  can  do  nothing  but  sit  back  and  wait  until 
it  has  run  itself  out  and  somebody  realizes  he's  been  cheated  and  is 
willing  to  testify.   In  that  case  it  took  years.   There  were  many 
others  like  that,  that  took  a  long  time. 

In  the  ship  case,  the  Point  Lobos  case,  it  took  many,  many 
months,  I  think.   It  was  a  year  or  more  before  there  was  any  infor 
mation  as  to  who  the  guilty  parties  were.   There  was  suspicion,  but 
that  was  all. 

The  thing  I  am  emphasizing  timewise  is  not  the  matter  of  the 
time  it  takes  to  investigate  a  case,  but  after  the  case  gets  into 
court,  after  the  indictment  is  returned. 


Standards  of  Evidence 


Stein:   Did  you  want  to  talk  about  what  standards  of  evidence  you  set  your 
self  or  Warren  set?  What  was  acceptable  as  evidence  and  what  wasn't? 

Olney:   Well,  with  respect  to  evidence,  we  used  all  the  evidence  that  we 

could  get.  We  did  not  hesitate  to  offer  into  evidence  anything  that 
the  rules  of  evidence  permitted. 

The  rules  were  somewhat  different  then  than  they  are  now.   At 
that  time,  under  California  law,  if  the  evidence  was  material  and 
tended  to  prove  the  matter  at  issue,  it  was  admissible  without 
regard  to  the  methods  that  were  used  for  obtaining  it.   An  objection 
that  a  statement  made  by  a  defendant  shouldn't  be  admitted  because 
he  hadn't  been  informed  of  his  right  to  counsel  or  that  a  document 
shouldn' t  be  admitted  because  it  was  obtained  in  a  search  without 
warrant — issues  of  that  kind — seldom  arose.   The  rules  as  to  admis- 
sibility  were  considerably  different.   Also,  we  didn't  have  any 
legal  ban  against  wiretapping. 


109 


Stein:   I  was  just  going  to  ask  about  that. 

Olney:   There  was  a  state  statute  which  prohibited  the  disclosure  of  tele 
phone  or  telegraph  messages.   That  had  been  passed  way  back  in  the 
'90s  and  was  intended  to  forbid  telephone  and  telegraph  operators 
from  giving  people  information  about  messages  that  they  got.   It 
had  nothing  to  do  with  intercepting  a  message  on  the  wires. 

The  federal  law  didn't  apply  either.   The  federal  law  relating 
to  telegraph  and  telephone  messages  was  just  like  the  state  one. 
It  was  intended  to  prohibit  people  in  those  companies  from  disclos 
ing  messages. 

There  was  a  federal  Radio  Act  that  did  prohibit  the  disclosure  of 
radio  messages.   It  applied  only  to  radio.   That  amendment  to  the 
Radio  Act  was  passed  when  they  first  started  using  the  radio 
telephone.   One  of  the  very  first  places  the  radio-telephone  was 
used  was  between  Catalina  Island  and  the  mainland.  However,  anybody 
could  listen  in  on  the  wave  lengths  the  telephone  company  was  using. 
People  would  telephone  back  and  forth  from  Santa  Monica  to  Catalina, 
believing  they  were  talking  in  private.   Finally,  certain  third 
persons  picked  up  conversations  between  certain  husbands  and  certain 
young  ladies  who  were  not  their  wives  and  then  disclosed  the  conver 
sations  with  very  unpleasant  results.   Congress  then  amended  the 
Radio  Act  to  make  the  disclosure  by  a  third  person  of  an  intercepted 
radio  message  a  crime.   Congress  could  and  did  make  the  disclosure 
of  the  message  a  crime,  but  it  could  not  and  did  not  make  the  inter 
ception  of  the  message  a  crime  since  it  was  being  broadcast  on  an 
open  wave  length  for  anyone  to  hear. 

But  those  were  the  only  restraints  we  had  excepting  the  very 
practical  one;  and  that  is  that  there  wasn't  any  equipment  for 
intercepting  telephone  messages  that  was  any  good.   As  far  as  I 
was  concerned,  I  had  no  moral  scruples  about  it.   I  thought  it 
would  be  a  very  good  idea  to  intercept  telephone  messages  in  the 
course  of  criminal  investigation  if  we  could  do  it. 

Now,  along  about  1934,  I  think  it  was,  the  Attorney  General  of 
the  United  States  called  a  national  conference  on  crime  to  consider 
the  important  and  voluminous  reports  of  the  Wickersham  Commission 
on  Crime,  which  had  made  a  very  extensive  investigation  into  crime 
and  produced  studies  on  crime  in  all  its  aspects. 

Earl  Warren  was  invited  to  go  back  to  the  national  conference  on 
crime  and  made  a  major  contribution  to  it.   At  that  time  we  first 
learned  that  there  was  equipment  coming  on  the  market  which  could 
be  used  for  intercepting  telephone  conversations.   Following  the 
national  conference  on  crime,  Oscar  Jahnsen  was  sent  east  to  take 
the  FBI  training  course  in  law  enforcement  methods  and  techniques. 
He  graduated  from  the  FBI  academy. 


110 


Stein:   That  answers  a  question.   I  was  talking  with  Professor  Arthur  Sherry 
several  days  ago  and  he  was  wondering  where  Jahnsen  learned  any  of 
the  microphone  and  wiretapping  techniques  that  he  knew. 

Olney:   He  got  that  from  the  FBI  school.   In  the  FBI  training  he  was  trained 
in  wiretapping,  among  other  things.   There  was  no  law  against  it. 
We  thought  that  was  great!   When  Oscar  got  back,  the  office  purchased 
some  Edison  equipment  for  recording  intercepted  telephone  messages. 
It  was  like  the  old  Edison  phonograph.   It  had  wax  cylinders  that 
went  around.   There  was  nothing  electronic  about  it.   It  was  mechan 
ical. 

Those  cylinders  had  to  be  replaced,  I  think,  about  every  hour,  so 
that  to  listen  to  somebody's  line  and  make  a  record  of  it  took  an 
awful  lot  of  manpower.   This  equipment  was  expensive.   Our  exper 
iences  with  it  were  very  unsatisfactory.   I  do  not  remember  any  case 
of  wiretapping  while  I  was  in  the  Alameda  County  District  Attorney's 
Office.  We  did  tap  at  least  two  telephone  lines  that  I  remember 
while  I  was  in  the  attorney  general's  office.   In  only  one  instance 
that  I  can  recall  did  we  get  anything  of  any  value.  As  an  investi 
gative  technique,  I  never  thought  it  had  much  value.   I  see  that 
this  week  the  federal  government  claims  that  they  made  a  very  large 
narcotic  knockover  here  in  Alameda  County  on  telephone  taps.   I 
don't  know  whether  they  did  or  not. 

There  were  many  times  when  we  had  informants  whose  safety  was 
very  precarious,  so  the  newspapers  were  given  the  version  that  we 
had  learned  about  various  things  on  telephone  taps.  We  had  never 
tapped  them  at  all,  but  we  did  not  want  it  known  that  our  informa 
tion  came  from  informants . 

Stein:   I  guess  that  serves  a  good  purpose,  too,  in  making  people  be  a  little 
cautious . 

Olney:   Well,  that's  true.   Such  experience  as  I  have  had  with  wiretapping, 
though,  made  me  very,  very  doubtful  about  its  general  usefulness. 
And  it  is  very  indiscriminate.   If  you  hang  on  a  line,  you  get 
everybody  who's  on  the  line,  not  just  the  people  you're  interested 
in.   This  isn't  healthy.   Since  that  time,  the  techniques  of  wire 
tapping  and  bugging  have  developed  so  far  beyond  anything  that  we 
pictured  at  the  time,  that  we  all  have  a  very  different  attitude 
towards  telephone  tapping  as  a  means  of  investigation.   In  view  of 
present  technical  capabilities,  if  there  were  no  prohibition  of 
indiscriminate  interception  of  telephone  messages,  life  would  be 
almost  unbearable. 

I  must  say,  though,  that  my  own  feeling  against  telephone  tapping 
is  not  based  on  moral  scruples.   I  can  see  no  valid  objection  to 
listening  in  on  people  plotting  crime.   I  think  that  is  entirely 


Ill 


Olney:   legitimate.   If  there  is  any  way  in  which  it  can  be  done,  I'm  all 
for  doing  it.   But  you  can't  permit  that  kind  of  thing  if  it  is 
going  to  simply  ruin  social  relations  in  general.   Furthermore,  it 
is  a  poor  way  to  investigate.   You  just  don't  get  enough.   And  it's 
wasteful!   Expensive!   The  equipment  and  the  manpower  it  takes  to 
do  it!   I  think  there  is  very  much  less  wiretapping  than  is  thought, 
for  that  reason.   It  is  not  worthwhile. 


Coordination  of  Law  Enforcement 


Stein:   You  mentioned  earlier  that  Warren  had  made  a  very  important  contribu 
tion  at  the  Attorney  General's  conference  in  Washington. 

Olney:   He  did,  I  am  sure.   He  supported  J.  Edgar  Hoover's  efforts  to 

strengthen  the  FBI  and  make  it  an  effective  federal  law  enforcement 
agency.   Then,  I  think  that  Earl  Warren  got  a  great  deal  out  of 
that  conference. 

I  don't  know  whether  it  was  a  result  of  that  conference  or  not, 
but  I  know  that  after  that  conference  he  was  always  very  sensitive 
to  the  importance  of  trying  to  support  decent  law  enforcement  and 
decent  government  in  every  county  in  the  state,  especially  neighbor 
ing  counties.   He  pursued  this.  He  worked  with,  got  personally 
acquainted  with,  the  key  officials,  police  chiefs,  district  attorneys, 
and  others,  and  tried  to  develop  organizations  that  would  raise  the 
standards,  that  would  develop  cooperation  between  law  enforcement 
agencies  all  over  the  state. 

In  his  own  county,  when  he  took  over,  we  had  all  these  little 
municipalities,  each  with  a  separate  police  department.  Most  of 
them  didn't  speak  to  each  other.   The  sheriff  took  the  position 
that  anything  that  happened  in  the  incorporated  areas  was  none  of 
his  business;  he  was  only  concerned  with  the  unincorporated  areas. 

Well,  Earl  had  to  start  at  that  level  in  order  to  organize  and 
develop  a  spirit  of  cooperation  and  law  enforcement  in  his  own 
county  first,  then  through  the  Peace  Officers'  Association  and  the 
District  Attorneys'  Association.   I  think  the  real  reason  he  was  so 
interested  in  the  legislation  was  that  he  recognized  that  that  was 
the  common  interest  that  all  of  them  had  and  that  they  could  be 
brought  together  and  gotten  to  cooperate  and  get  acquainted. 


112 


Reflections  on  Earl  Warren's  Career 


Olney:   There  is  one  thing  that  I  want  to  say  about  being  in  the  office  at 

the  time.  I  had  no  consciousness  at  all  that  I  was  working  for  any 
one  anybody  would  call  an  unusual  man.  I  never ,  never  pictured  Earl 
Warren  as  a  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States  or  even  as  a  governor! 

When  I  was  in  the  district  attorney's  office,  I  thought  it  was 
improbable  that  he  would  ever  be  attorney  general .   The  reason  was 
his  narrow  political  base.  He  had  no  organization,  only  his  own 
office  in  Alameda  County.   I  knew  that  these  concerns  about  the 
state  as  a  whole  had  made  him  very  interested  in  the  attorney 
general's  office,  so  interested  that  he  developed  a  series  of  amend 
ments  to  the  state  constitution  relating  to  the  attorney  general, 
to  make  him  the  chief  law  enforcement  officer  of  the  state,  to  make 
the  district  attorneys  and  sheriffs  somewhat  accountable  to  the 
attorney  general. 

He  did  that  when  he  was  still  district  attorney.  He  knew  that 
U.S.  Webb  was  not  the  kind  of  personality  who  would  ever  want  to 
make  much  use  of  those  provisions,  but  he  went  ahead  and  made  them 
anyway.   I  know  he  thought  it  was  unlikely  that  he  would  ever  have 
occasion  to  use  them  or  be  attorney  general  and  use  them.  When  he 
finally  decided  that  he  would  run  for  attorney  general,  he  waited 
until  U.S.  Webb  was  ready  to  quit  and  then  announced.   I  thought  he 
would  have  a  very  difficult  time  getting  elected.   But  he  did  not. 

Stein:   By  that  time  he  had  become  active  within  the  Republican  party, 
hadn't  he? 

Olney:   Yes,  yes,  to  some  extent  anyway.   I  don't  know  much  about  these 
activities,  as  I  had  left  the  district  attorney's  office  and  was 
with  my  father  in  San  Francisco . 

After  he  became  attorney  general,  he  was  very  content  with  that 
position.   It  was  made  to  order  for  him  because  he  had  fashioned  it 
that  way.   He  enjoyed  the  work;  it  interested  him.   It  was  broad 
enough  in  scope  and  he  liked  it.   He  would  have  remained  there,  I 
think,  almost  indefinitely  if  Governor  Olson  hadn't  constantly 
baited  him. 

We  had  no  thought  as  to  what  Earl  Warren's  future  would  be  when 
we  were  in  the  district  attorney's  office. 

Stein:   A  question  that  people  ask  us  all  the  time  is  whether  we  think  that 
Warren  really  changed  from  the  time  he  was  DA  to  the  time  he  was 
chief  justice,  or  if  it  was  a  continual  development,  so  I'll  throw 
that  question  out  to  you. 


113 


Olney:   Well,  he  certainly  developed  and  development  means  change.   I  do  not 
think  he  reversed  his  principles,  if  that's  the  kind  of  change  you 
have  in  mind.   He  was  always  very  scrupulous  and  very  conscious, 
when  it  came  to  criminal  law,  of  the  weakness  in  position  of  most 
of  the  people  who  get  charged  with  crime.   It  you  take  a  look  at 
what  goes  into  the  hopper,  they  really  are  the  unfortunate  ones  of 
our  society.   Once  they  get  caught  in  that  machinery,  they  have  very 
great  difficulty.  He  was  always  sensitive  to  that.   He  developed 
the  first  decent  sort  of  parole  system  for  county  jail  prisoners 
that  we  ever  had  in  the  county. 

Stein:   How  did  that  work? 

Olney:   Well,  I  don't  know.  He  served  on  the  parole  board  there  to  parole 
these  fellows  who  were  getting  county  jail  sentences.   I  don't  know 
the  details  of  it.   I  had  nothing  to  do  with  it  personally,  but  I 
remember  it  well  enough.   He  would  never  countenance  anything  on 
the  part  of  his  assistants  that  smacked  of  overreaching  or  unfairness 
or  anything  of  that  kind.   But  on  the  other  hand,  he  believed  that 
when  he  was  district  attorney  his  job  was  that  of  a  prosecutor  and 
that  meant  to  present  the  case  as  fully  and  effectively  as  the  facts 
and  the  law  permitted. 

There  were  lines  of  conduct  and  of  evidence,  lines  of  conduct  in 
court,  and  he  felt  that — I've  heard  him  say  that  he  thought  he  ought 
to  go  right  up  to  the  line.   Not  over  it,  but  right  up  to  the  line. 

As  governor  he  had  great  concern  with  the  correctional  system. 
When  he  became  governor,  he  was  faced  with  huge  scandals  in  the 
Prison  Board.   They  were  selling  pardons  and  paroles  right  out  of 
the  governor's  office!   He  had  to  reorganize  the  whole  system  of 
corrections,  which  was  done,  and  he  brought  in  Dick  McGee  to  head 
the  department.   It  developed  into  one  of  the  fine  correctional 
systems  of  the  time.   This  all  had  his  very  strong  support,  very 
great  interest. 

When  he  became  chief  justice,  his  function  was  different.   His 
position  was  different.   There  he  was  not  an  administrator.   He  had 
no  way  of  setting  policies  or  putting  restraints  on  the  conduct  of 
the  enforcement  agencies  or  on  the  treatment  of  those  convicted. 


114 


The  Gosden  Case 


Stein:    I  do  think  it  would  be  a  good  idea,  if  you  would  like  to,  if  you 

would  tell  me  a  little  bit  about  some  of  the  cases  you  were  telling 
me  about  yesterday,  like  how  you  got  interested  in  the  Gosden  case. 
You  could  leave  the  story  of  the  case  itself  to  the  newspaper 
clippings. 

[Some  time  after  Mr.  Olney  tape  recorded  the  high  points  of  the 
Gosden  case,  he  wrote  out  a  full  account  of  his  participation  in 
the  case.   This  account,  which  begins  on  the  following  page,  has 
been  substituted  here  for  the  tape-recorded  narrative.] 


115 


A   STUDY    IN   COINCIDENCE 
THE    CASE    OF    LOUIS    GOSDEN 

This    story   is   more   about   the  workings    of    coincidence 
than   it  is    about   a   criminal   trial.      If   the   cast  of    characters 
seem  unrelated  and   the   sequence   of   events  which   I    recite   seems 
disconnected,    it  is   because   that   is    the  way   they   really   appeared 
to  me    at   the   time.      A  great   deal  happened  and   it  was    a   long 
time   before    anyone    at   all  suspected   that   there   might  be   some 
relationship  between   all   these   people   and  occurrences.      A- 
pattern   finally   did  emerge   and  it  was    a  sinister  picture   indeed. 
The    revelation   came   more  by    coincidence   than  by   anything   else 
and  that   is   what   this   story   is    about.      There  was    not   just  simple 
coincidence   in   this   matter.      Coincidence  became   piled  on   coinci 
dence    and  ir.ore    coincidence   on   top   of    that,    to   a  height  or  depth 
that   is    truly    astonishing  in  real   life. 

My   connection  with   the  people    and  events  which    culminated 
in   the   trial   of   Louis    Gosden  began   in   early   December,    1934. 
At   that   time,    I  was   Deputy  District  Attorney   in  Alameda  County. 
Our   District  Attorney  was   Earl  Warren.    I   had   joined  his   staff 
in    1930.      My   purpose   in   so   doing  was    to   get  practical   experience 
in   the   trial   of    jury    cases    and  to   learn   something   about   the 
art   of   advocacy.      I    asked   for   and  was    assigned  to   the   trial 
of    criminal    cases. 

After  trying  the   regular  run   of    felony    cases    for   two 
or   three  years,    I  was    assigned  to  homicide   cases.      There  were 
t*ro   of   us    on    this    assignment.      The   number  one   man  on   the   team 
was    Charles   Wehr.      He  was    considerably   my   senior   in   age    as 
well    as    in  experience.      As    the  number   two  man,    a   large   part 
of  my  work  was    in  preparing  the  homicide    cases    for   trial. 
That   is,    in   overseeing  the   completion   of    the   investigation   and 
the    preparation   of   exhibits,    processing   the   subpoenaes    and  the 
like,    interviewing  witnesses    and  being  useful   generally. 

Charlie  was    very   generous    about   letting  me    take   part 
in   the   trials.      We   usually    alternated   in   the   examination  of  prosecu 
tion  witnesses    and  often   I  was    permitted   to   cross-examine   some 
of   the   defense  witnesses.      The  key  witnesses,    of    course,    Charlie 
handled  himself.      As    a   rule,    Charlie  made    the   Opening  Statements 
to   the   jury  before    the   commencement   of   the   taking  of   testimony, 
as   well   as    the    closing  argument,    leaving   the   opening    argument 
to    the    jury    to  me. 

I   suppose    that   Charlie   thought   that  by   this    arrangement 
he  was    reserving   the  more   vital   parts    of   the   presentation   for 
himself,    leaving   the  opening  argument   to  me  because   he   thought 
it  not   so  important.      If  this  was   his    reasoning,    I    came   to    consider 
it    faulty.      I    found  by   experience    that   a   good   opening   argument 
can   oftentimes    determine    the   result   of    the    case.      If   rhetoric 
and    forensics    are   ignored  and   the   opening   argument  is   based  on 


116 

a   closely    reasoned  factual   view   of    the   evidence,    the   defendant 
can   oftentimes   be    dug   into   an  evidentiary  hole   so  deep   that 
he    can    never   get   out. 

Since    it  was   my    assignment   to   try  homicide    cases    in 
Earl  Warren's   office,    this   very   naturally   kept   alive  my    long 
continued  interest  in  murder   trials    and   in   the  whole   subject 
of  why  people   kill   one    another   and  what    to   do   about   it.      My 
interest  in  murder   trials    goes   back   a   long  way. 

While    in   law   school   I    formed   the   desire   of    learning 
to   try   jury    cases    and  becoming   an   effective    advocate.      I    read 
such   books    as    Francis   Wellman's   The  Art   of   Cross   Examination 
and  John   C.    Read' s  'little   volume   entitled  The   Conduct   of    a 
Lawsuit.      I   noticed  in  books    such   as    this    that   most  of the 
examples    of   effective   advocacy  were    taken   from   criminal    as 
against   civil   trials.      This    led  me    to   delve   into  that   remarkable 
series    of  books    called  Notable   British  Trials.      There  were 
already   possibly    a  hundred  of   these   red-backed  volumes,    each 
devoted   to   the   trial   of   some   notable    case.      Some  were   old   and 
some  were   new.      Each   volume   includes    a   large   part  of    the    transcrip- 
of    testimony   or   at    least   a  detailed  summary   of    the   evidence. 
Very   often   the    jury   arguments   of    counsel   on  both   sides    are 
included  in   full.      It  was   here    that   I    found  what   seemed   to 
me    jury   arguments    that  ware  brilliant   and  effective.      From 
their  study,    I    came    to  believe   that   there   are    techniques    in 
presenting  evidence    to   a   court  which   can  be    acquired   and  skill 
in  making   arguments  which    can  be    learned.      I    read   a  great  many 
of   these   British   trials    from   this   point  of   view.      Most   of   the 
cases   were    for   treason   or  murder   and  of    the  murder   cases    I 
found   that   the   poison   cases    as    a   group  were   the  more   interesting 
to  me.      They   seemed  to  bring   forth   the  most  remarkable   demonstra 
tions    of   skillful   advocacy. 

I   think   there   is    a   reason   for   this.      Because   the   evidence 
in  poison    cases    is    usually    circumstantial,    proof   requires   putting 
together  of   one    fact   after   another   until   the  picture   emerges, 
at   first  dimly,    and  then  with   greater   and  greater   clarity   as 
more    and  more    facts    are    fitted  into  place.      Finally,    the   true 
horror  of   deliberate   poisoning  of   one  by    another  becomes    sharp, 
clear   and  irrefutable.      This   process    in   the   courtroom   affords 
the  broadest  scope    to  the  personal   skill   of    the    advocate    for 
the  Crown,    or   the   State,    as   he  has    full   discretion   to   determine 
the   order   and   time    in   the   trial  when  each   piece   of   evidence 
is   presented.      The    clarity   of   the    final   picture   of    the    crime 
and  the   degree   of    certainty   about   responsibility    for   its    commissioi 
will   often   depend   in  poison   cases    upon   the    forensic  skill   of 
the   prosecutor  presenting  his    evidence,    piece  by  piece,    in  such 
order   and  such   manner  that   the    relationship   of   each    circumstance 
to   all   the   others   becomes    firmly   and  permanently   established. 

It   is    natural   that   a   case  where    the   proof   must  be   pieced 
together   in   this  way  will  produce   interesting   jury    arguments 
for  here    the   advocate   must  go   over  every   piece   of   the  mosaic 
and   apply    the    light   of    reason   to   it   as    a   total   picture    so   that 
belief   in  its    truthfulness    is   established  beyond   a   reasonable 
doubt   in   the  minds   of    the   Court   and  the   twelve    jurors    in   the 
box. 


117 


In   poison   cases,    the  professional   opportunities    for 
counsel    for   the   defense    are   no    less   great   than   for  Crown   counsel 
or  State   prosecutors.      The   evidence   for   the  prosecution  must 
of   necessity  be    complex   and  if   the   defendant's    advocate    can 
subject   even  one   link   of    the   chain  of    circumstantial   proof    to 
a  reasonable    doubt,    the  prosecution  will    collapse.      No   doubt 
there   have  been  many  poison   cases  where    the    rebuttal   of   evidence 
and  the  marshalling  of   facts    and  evidence  by   the   defense  have 
been   outstanding,   but   the  most   admirable   of   these  performances 
are    lost  to  history   since   under  our  system  acquittals    and  mis 
trials    are   not   appealed  and   the   records    of   such   trials    are   therefore 
not   preserved. 

My   assignment   to  homicide   in   the  District  Attorney's 
office   also   led  me    to   take   some   interest   in   the   statistics    on 
murder.      Even   then   there  were   some   statistics,    at   least   on   rates 
of  murder,    per  hundred  thousand  of   the  population,    between   different 
states    in  the   United  States    and   the  United  States    and   countries 
in  Europe.      Of   course,    one   fact   that  stood  out   conspicuously 
was    the  much  higher  rate   of  murder  in   the  United  States    as    compared 
with    the    rate   in  European   countries.      I    cannot  now   recall   the 
figures,    but   I    do   remember  that   the  United  States'  murder   rate 
was   many   times   higher  than   the   rate   in  Great  Britain,    France 
and  Germany.      I   believe    that  was    true  with    respect   to  every 
European   country  where  we   have   any    figures . 

These   same   statistics   had   tables    comparing   the   means 
used   for   commiting  murders    from   country   to   country.      It  was 
no  surprise   to   read   that   in   the  United  States    firearms   were 
overwhelmingly    the   favorite   means    of   murder.    European  nations 
seemed  to   vary    considerably    between   one   another   in   the   use   of 
knives,    firearms,    clubs    and  so   forth   in  killing  one    another. 
This    sort   of    thing   could   lead  one   to   speculate    as    to   differences 
in  national    character. 

In   these   tables,    there  was    one    figure  with   respect   to 
the  means    of   murder  in   the  United  States    that   at   the    time   seemed 
to  me    very,    very    curious.      The   rate    for  murder  by   poison   is    not 
very  high   in   any    country  but  in   the   United  States    the   rate    for 
murder  by  poison  was    far   lower   than   in  Great   Britain,    France, 
Germany   or   any   other  European   country.      In   a   country   as  'addicted 
to  homicide    as  we    are,   why   should  poison   as    a  means   be   so  very 
low   on    the   list  of   means    in   comparison   to  other   civilized   countries? 

It   seemed  to  me    there  were   some   sinister   implications 
from  these  statistics.      A  body  with    a   gunshot  wound  or  stab   in 
the  back   is   going   to  get   into   the  homicide   statistics    regardless 
of  whether  the   perpetrator  is    apprehended  or   even  identified. 
The   poisoner,    on   the   other  hand,   will   not  get   into  homicide   statis 
tics    if  he   is   successful.      He    relies   upon  secrecy    and  upon   lack 
of  suspicion.      The   possibility   suggested  itself    to  me    that   the 
reason   the    figures    for   death  by   poison   in   the  United  States   were 
so   low   might  be   because    our  poisoners   were   not  being  suspected 
and  their   crimes    therefore  were   not  being   registered  in   the   statis 
tics.      The    foregoing   is   background,    all   of  which   had   a  bearing 


118 

on  what  happened  in  December  of    1934  when   I  was    told   that   a 
representative   of    the  Pioneer  Mutual   Life    Insurance   Association 
was    demanding    to   see  me   about  holding   an   inquest  on   one  of    their 
insured  risks . 

One   of   my   duties,    as    the   number   two  man   on   the  homicide 
cases,   was    regular   attendance   at   the   coroner's    inquests.      That 
is  why    this   matter  was    referred   to  me.      Having   introduced  himself 
as    a   representative   of   the  Pioneer  Mutual   Life   Insurance   Association 
my   visitor   stated   that  his    company  had  written   a  policy   of   life 
insurance   on   a  young  woman  who  had  died  shortly   thereafter. 
They   thought   it  might  be   suicide   and   they  wanted  an   inquest   to 
find  out.      The   policy   had  been  written  on  September   14,    1934, 
in   the   amount   of    $1,000,    on   a   23-year  old  housewife  who  had   died 
the    following  November   21.      The   company   insisted  upon  knowing 
the   cause   of    death  before   paying   the   claim. 

I   asked  if   there  had  been   a  medical   examination  of   the 
insured  before    the   policy  was  written   and   the   answer  was    no. 
The    insurance   man  said  the   application  had  been   received  in 
the  mail   and  no  medical   examination  had  been   required.      On   learning 
this    I  questioned   the    insurance   man   closely   and  made   notes   with 
paper   and  pencil   as    to   the   name    and   aidress   of    the  Company,    the 
name    and   address   of   the   insured,    the  beneficiary,    the    amount 
of   the   premium,    and  so   forth. 

The    reason   for   this    action   on  my   part  was    that   at   that 
time   our  office  was   engaged  in   a   campaign   against   fraudulent 
insurance   companies    that  were   operating  in  Alameda  County.      There 
had  been   a   considerable   number  of    fly-by-night   insurance    companies 
selling   life,    accident,    and  health   insurance   policies    and   collecting 
premiums    from  people   in  Alameda  County.      They  would   continue 
to   collect  money   as    long   as    they   could.      When   the   first   claim 
would   come   in   they  would   close    the   office   and  decamp   and  set 
up   their  offices   somewhere   else.      Most  of   these    companies  were 
issuing  policies  without   requiring  a  medical   examination.      I 
secured  as   much   information   as    I    could   about   the  Company   in   this 
case  with    a  view   to  passing   it  on   to   the   lawyers    in   the   office 
investigating   the   insurance    racket. 

After   I   had  gotten  all    the   information   that   I    could  I 
asked  the   insurance   man  what   the   autopsy   had  shown   as    the   cause 
of   death.      He   said  that    as    far   as   he  knev;   there   hadn't  been   any 
autopsy    and    that's   why    the  Company   wanted    an    inquest.    I    pointed 
out   to  him  that   an   inquest  is    a   formal   legal   proceeding   that 
is    only  held  when   there   is   some   question   about   the    cause    of 
death,   when  evidence   needs    to  be   taken   to   determine    its    cause, 
and   that   in   all   cases  where   the   cause   of    death  was    not    readily 
apparent   an   autopsy  was   held   to   determine    its   medical    cause   and 
to  enter   the   same   in   the   death    certificate.      I    told   the   insurance 
man   that   since    their   insured  had   died   as    long   ago    as   November 
21,    1934,    there  was    certain   to  be    a  death    certificate   on   file 
in   the   County   Clerk's    office   across    the   street   and   that   if   there 
had  been   any   uncertainty   as    to    the    cause   of   death    an   autopsy 
would  have  been  held  and  it  would  have   been   entered  in   the   death 
certificate.      I   suggested  to  him  that  he   examine   the   death    certifies  • 
and   then   come  back   and  talk    to  me    further  on  whether   an   inquest 


119 

was    needed.      He   did   this    and   returned  in  due    course.      He   said 

there  was    indeed   a  death    certificate   on    file    and  that   it  showed 

that    an   autopsy  had  been  made  by   Dr.    Tiffany,    the  Alameda  County 

autopsy   surgeon,    and  that   the    cause   of    death  was    reported   as 

double    lobar  pneumonia.      The   insurance   man   told  me    that  he   did 

not   desire    to   renew   the  Company's    request   for   an   inquest,    that 

neither  he  nor   the   Company  had  realized  that   the    cause    of   death 

had  been  established  by   an   autopsy.      He   said  the  Company  was 

satisfied  and  would   require   no   further   action  by   the  public   authorities 

The   matter  seemed  to  be    at   an   end. 

On   inquiry  within  our   office,    I  was    told   that   the  Pioneer 
Mutual   Life    Insurance   Association  was    not   involved   in   the   investiga 
tion   of    the   insurance    racket   that  was   presently   going   on,    but 
instead  of   throwing  my    notes    away,    I   sent   the    folder   and   the 
card   I   had  made    to   the   general    file.      Why,    I    do   not  know. 

Among  my   duties    as    the    junior   lawyer  assigned  to   the 

trial   of  homicide   cases  was   keeping   in   touch  with    the    local  hospitals. 
Experience  had  shown  oftentimes    that   on   reaching   the  hospital, 
victims    of  homicide    are    capable   of   making  statements   before   they 
die.    'These   statements    can   sometimes  be   important  pieces    of   evidence. 
Taking   these   statements    from   a   dying  person   is    not  only   a  very 
sensitive    and  difficult   thing   to   do,    but   they   iriust  be   taken  under 
very   strictly   observed   circumstances   in  order   to  be   admissible 
in  evidence.      A  knowledge   of   the  highly    technical   requirements 
that  make   a  dying  statement   admissible   in   court   is   more    than 
can  be   expected   of    the   ordinary   police   officer.      Accordingly, 
there   developed  an   understanding   that   the   doctors    at   the   local 
hospitals  would  notify    the  District  Attorney's   office   directly 
whenever  they    received  someone  whom  they   thought  might  be    capable 
of  making  a  statement  before   dying   from   criminally   inflicted 
injuries.      Most  of    these   calls    came   in  at   night  and  it  was   my 
duty    as    the   junior  member  of    the   team  to   respond. 

One   night,    probably   in  early   January   of   1935,    I    received 
a  telephone    call   from  Highland  Hospital    telling  me   that   they 
had   an   18  year  old  girl  who  had  been  badly  butchered  in  a   criminal 
abortion   and  whom  they   thought  would  probably   die.      They   told 
me    that   she  was    still    conscious    and   rational    and  that   if   I  wanted 
to  get   a  statement   from  her  before   she   died,    I   had  better  get 
out   there   in   a  hurry.      I    got   to    the  hospital,    and   found   the   patient 
was    named  Lydia  Sanborn.      She  was    fully    conscious    and  stronger 
than   I   had  expected. 

Victims    of    abortionists    are   usually   reluctant   to   talk 
but  Lydia  Sanborn,    to  my   surprise,   had  no  hesitation   in  giving 
the    full   details    on   just  what  had  occurred.      She   said   that   her 
pregnancy  was    due    to   a  young  boyfriend  of   her  own   age  who   lived 
somewhere   in   Kings    County   in  the   San  Joaquin  Valley.      She  had 
no   address    for  him   and  did  not  know   exactly  where  he   lived. 
She  had   recently  been   employed  in  East  Oakland  by   a  widower   to 
take   care   of  his   small   daughter  while  he  was    away   at  work    and 
he   had  been  quite   kind  to  her.      When  she   confided   to  him  the 
trouble   she  was    in  he   offered   to  help  her  obtain   an   abortion. 


120 

Her  employer  made    arrangements   with   an   abortionist  in  Alameda. 

He   took  her   for  the   operation  to   an   address    in  Alameda  which 

she  was    able    to   remember   and  to   premises    she   could   describe    inside 

and  out   in  great   detail.      The    abortionist  was   paid  by  her   employer 

and  the   operation  was    performed   and  she  was    taken  home.      Things 

went  wrong   and  when  she  became   desperately    ill,    someone   took 

her   to  Highland  Hospital. 

The   doctors    at   the  hospital   told  me    that   the   operation 
was    very    crude    and  .that  Lydia  had   little    chance   of   survival. 
Nevertheless,    she   did  survive.      In   fact,    she  made    a  speedy   recovery, 

If  Lydia  had   died  the   resultant  homicide  would  have  been 
a  case   for  Charlie  Wehr  and  me    to   try.      Accordingly,    after   talking 
to  Lydia   at  Highland  Hospital,    I    continued  with    the    investigation. 
As   early    as   possible    the  next  morning   I    sent   officers    to  bring 
Lydia1 s    employer  to  my   office    for  questioning.      I    took    a   lengthy 
statement   from  him  in   the  presence   of   a  stenographer.      Lydia's 
employer   corroborated  her  in   all  particulars    and  gave   us    the 
name    and   address   of  the   abortionist.      He    turned  out   to  be   an 
automobile   mechanic  by  profession.      Lydia's   employer  went  home. 
A  warrant  was    issued   for   the   arrest  of    the   abortionist   and  he 
was   put  in   the    county    jail   that   afternoon. 

I    realized  that   in  order   to  make   the    case    complete    and 
secure,    I   should  confront   the   abortionist  with   Lydia's    employer 
and  have  her  employer   identify    the  man   in   front   of  him  as   being 
the  man   that  he  had  paid   and  who  had  performed   the   operation. 
Otherwise,    Lydia's    employer  might   change   his    cooperative    attitude 
by   the   time   of    trial   and  might  take    the  witness   stand   and   repeat 
his    story    and  say    to  us,    in  effect,    "Yes,    everything   I   told  you 
is    true,    only    the  defendant   isn't   the  man   I  was    talking   about. 
It  was    somebody   else." 

I    decided  to   eliminate    this   possibility   by  having   a 
confrontation   and   accordingly    the   next   day   I    again  sent   for  Lydia's 
employer   and   again  had   a  stenographer  present   to   take   down  what 
was    said.      Out   of   the  presence   of  Lydia's    employer  I    issued  instruc 
tions    for  the    abortionist   to  be  brought   over   from   the    jail. 
This    took   some    10    or   15   minutes.      Because    I  wanted  to  keep   Lydia's 
employer  in   a   talkative   mood,    I   started  questioning  him  about 
everything   I    could  think   of    to   use   up   time   until   the. abortionist 
was   brought  into   the   room.      I  went  over   all   the   detai Is    of    the 
case    again   and   then  had  to  branch   out   into   other  matters.      I 
asked  this    man  many  questions    about  his    daughter,    about  his    former 
wife,    about  how    long  he  had  been   a  widower,    and  what  had  happened 
to  his  wife . 

He    told  me   that  his  wife  had  died   in  November,    that   she 
had  eaten  some    fish   that  had  stood  in   an  open   tin   can   too   long 
and  that   it  had  killed  her,    leaving  him  with    a    little   daughter 
and   no  one    to   care   for  her  while  he  was    away    at  work.      He   had 
employed  Lydia  Sanborn,    who  was    living   across    the  street,    to 
come   in   and  baby-sit   for   the    little   girl  when  he  was    off    on   the 
job.      After   a   lot  more    talk,    all   of  which  was,    of    course,    included 
in    the   stenographic  statement,    the    abortionist  was    brought   into 


121 


the   room.      Lydia's   employer  had  no  hesitancy    about   identifying 
the   man  before   him  as    the  person   to  whom  he  had  paid   the  money 
and  who  had  performed   the   operation  on   Lydia.      The   abortionist 
was    returned   to    jail   and  Lydia's   employer  went  home.      I    felt 
the   abortion   case  was    complete.      Since   no  homicide  had  developed, 
it   could  be    turned  over  to   someone   else   in   the  office    for   trial. 

There  was    one  more    thing   it  seemed  necessary   to   do. 

Since   Lydia's   employer  was   such   a  key  witness,    it  was   very   important 
that  he  be    available   to   testify    at   the   time   of    trial.      To   guarantee 
his   presen'ce  when   needed,    I   placed   a   charge    against  him  for 
contributing   to   the   delinquency   of   a  minor  by   taking  Lydia  to 
have   the    abortion  performed,    thereby  putting  him  under  bail. 
For  me,    the  matter  was    closed   -   or  so   I   thought. 

About    the  middle   of  January,    1935,    I  had  a   day   to  myself. 
A  defendant  whom  I  was    assigned   to   try   entered   a  plea  of   guilty 
on   the    very  norning  the   proceedings  were   to   commence,   with    the 
result   that   I   had  the  entire   day    free.      It   seemed  a  good  opportunity 
for  me    to  make   a  social    call  on  Mr.    Archibald  B.    Tinning,    the 
District  Attorney  of  Contra  Costa  County   in  Martinez.      Mr.    Tinning 
had   appointed  me    a  Deputy   District  Attorney   of   Contra  Costa 
County    in  October,    1927   and   I  had  worked  in   that    capacity   for 
him   for  something  over   two  years.      During  this   period,    I   became 
very    fond  of  Mr.    Tinning.      I  had  not   seen  him   for  quite   a   long 
time.      So  with    a   free   day,    I    decided   to   drive   out   to  Martinez 
and  pay   my   respects,   which   I    did. 

On   the   return   trip,   while   driving   alone   through   Franklin 
Canyon,    I  was    thinking  of   the   contrast   in   the  kind  of  work   I 
was    doing  in  Alameda  County   and  the  work,    or   lack   of  work,    I 
had  had   in  Contra  Costa  County.      During   the  years    I  was    in  Contra 
Costa  County,    I   tried  only   two   jury    cases    and  the   rest  of   my 
work  was    very   quiet   and  orderly   indeed.      This  was   quite    in   contrast 
with    the   strenuous    activity   in  the  Alameda  County   District  Attorney's 
office  where    in   a   few  years    I   had  tried  well   over   100    jury 
cases .      In  Contra  Costa  County   there  was    nothing   like   the    call 
out  of  bed   at   night  on  homicide    cases,    as   was   happening   to 
me  so   frequently   as    to  be    almost  routine. 

This   brought   to  mind  the   call   from  Highland  .Hospital 
in   the   middle   of   the   night  when   I   had  gone   out   to   interview 
Lydia   Sanborn.      I   thought  of    the   abortionist   and  how  strong 
the   case    against  him  would  be  with   the   victim   actually   available 
to   testify   against  him.      It   seemed   to  me   that  Lydia  Sanborn 
would  probably  be    an   excellent  witness.    The   only   part   of  her 
story    I   didn't   like  was   her  account  of   the  boyfriend  who  was 
supposed   to  have   made  her  pregnant.      It   seemed  to  me    that   this 
probably  wasn't   too   important,    as    the   identity   of    the  man   responsible 
for  pregnancy    is   not   an   issue   in  prosecuting  an   abortioner. 
Nevertheless,    in   this   particular,    Lydia's    account  was   hazy 
and  unsatisfactory   and  never  had  been  really    cleared  up.      I 
wondered  if   it  was   possible    that   the  boyfriend  might  be    a 
myth   and  whether  her   friendly   employer  who  had   arranged   for 
the   operation   and  had  paid   for   the    abortion  might  not  have 


122 

been   responsible    for  the  pregnancy.      I    recalled  him  as   he 
appeared  while  being  interviewed  in  my   office    as    a  pretty   unsavory 
character,    not   at   all    the  Good  Samaritan   type,    an  odd  man  with 
an   odd   name.      I  wondered  what  his    origins  were,    Polish,'  Ukranian, 
Latvian,    probably   not   a  Western  European,    and  his    name,    Gosden, 
what  kind  of    a  name   is    that?      I    couldn't   assoociate    that   name 
with    any    language   or   nationality   -   in   fact,    I   had  never  heard 
it  before,    and  then  it   flashed  into  my  mind   that  maybe    I   had 
heard   that   name  befiore    and   that   it  wasn't   completely   unfamiliar. 

While   driving  along  with   nothing  much    to   think   about, 
I  began   racking  my  memory    as    to  where   I   might  have  heard   the 
name   Gosden  before.      Finally   I    remembered,    or   thought   I    remembered, 
rather   uncertainly,    that  Gosden  had  been   the   name   given   to' 
me  by   the  man    from  the    life   insurance    company,    a   good  many 
weeks   before,    as    the   insured  upon  which   his   Company  was    requesting 
an   inquest.      The   more   I   thought   about  it,    the  more   it  seemed 
to  me   that   the   insurance  man  had  used  the   name   Gosden.      But 
if  so,    it  seemed   a  little   strange    that   I   had  not   recognized 
the   name  when  Lydia  Sanborn  had   first   told  me    about  her  employer. 
But   it  was    the  middle   of    the   night   and   I   hadn't  been   thinking 
about   odd  names . 

At   any   rate,    driving  back   from  Martinez',    I    decided 
that  when   I    got   to   the   office,    I  would   look    at   the   insurance 
man's    file,    if   I    could   find  it,    and  see  what   the   name   of  his 
insured  had   actually  been.      I   had  quite   a   time    locating   the 
file,    because   I   had  indexed  it   under  the   name   of    the   insurance 
company,    not   the  insured,    and  I    couldn't   remember   the   name 
of   the    company.      I    finally   did  find  it   under  Pioneer  Mutual 
Life   Association   and  there   in  my   notes  was    the   name   of    the 
insured,    Laura   Gosden.      Her  husband  was    named   as    Louis    Gosden. 
Naturally,    I  went   across    the  street   to   the  Clerk's    office    to 
look   at   the  death    certificate    that   the   insurance   man  had  said 
was    on   file.      There   it  was    -   the   deceased  was    Laura  Gosden, 
1275    -   96th  Avenue,    Oakland;   husband,    Louis   Gosden,    died  November 
21,    1934;    cause    of    death,    double    lobar  pneumonia;    signed  by 
the    County    autopsy   surgeon. 

I   took   a   copy   of   the   death    certificate  back    to  my 
office  with   me,    looking   at   that   entry    about  pneumonia.   •  My 
questioning  of   Louis    about  his  wife   and  her   death  had  been 
of   no    consequence    and  was    only   to    use    up    time,    but    it   didn't 
seem  to  me   that   death    from  pneumonia  squared  with  what  he 
had   told  me    about  the   cause   of  her   death. 

I    got   the    file   on   the   abortion   case    and  looked   at   the 
transcript  of    the  statement   I   had   taken    from  Louis    on   the   occasion 
when  he  had  been   confronted  with    the   abortionist  in  my   office. 
There  was    the  question,    "What  happened   to  your  wife,    Louis, 
that   she   died?"      There  was    the   answer,    "She    ate   some    fish   that 
had  gone   bad  standing  in   an   open   can,    and   it  killed  her." 
How    could   a  man  believe    that  his  wife   had   died   from  eating 
spoiled   fish  when   the   autopsy   showed   that   pneumonia  was    the 
cause   of   death?      It  was    also  troublesome    to   realize    that   this 
housewife,    however  she  may  have    died,    had  been   insured  only 


123 

a  few  weeks  before  she  passed  away.  According  to  my  notes 
and  what  I  had  been  told,  the  application  for  insurance  on 
Laura  Gosden's  life  had  been  received  through  the  mail  and 
there  had  been  no  medical  examination. 

From  here   on,    the   investigation  moved  with   very   great 
speed  indeed.      We    did  a   great  many   things,    many   of    them  simultan 
eously.      We    found   that  Laura  Gosden  had  a   father   and  mother 
and  a  sister,    living  in  Oakland.      We    interviewed   them,    and 
also  Laura's    neighbors. 

Laura  Gosden  died  about   1:00    in  the  morning  of  November 
21,    1934.      We    found   from  her  relatives    and   friends    that  Laura 
had  not  been  sick    and  indeed,    on   the   day  before,    she  had  been 
unusually    active.      She   had  done    the  entire   family  washing   and 
was   seen  hanging  it  on    the   clotheslines    on   the   garage    roof 
to   dry.      She   had   talked  with  her  sister  on   the   telephone,    gone 
shopping   and   as    late    as    5:00    in   the  evening  was    seen  by   the 
neighbors   sitting  on  her   front  porch  with  her  small   daughter. 
By   1:00    the   next  morning  she  was    dead   and  the   autopsy   surgeon 
said  it  was    double    lobar  pneumonia. 

From   the   neighbors  we    learned  that   about  midnight   on 
the   night   that   Laura  died,    Louis  had   crossed   the   street   and 
knocked  on   the   door  of   Mrs.    Delia  Cereghino   and'  asked  her 
to   call   a  doctor,    as'  his  wife  was    very   sick.      Mrs.    Cereghino 
telephoned  her  own  physician,    Dr.    Milton  P.    Ream,    and  when 
the   doctor  arrived,    Mrs.    Cereghino   and  two  other  neighbor   ladies 
went   to   the   Gosden  house.      They    found  Laura,    in  her  pajamas, 
on   the    floor  of    the  kitchen,    undergoing   terrible   convulsions. 
The   doctor   described  this    later  on   from   the  witness   stand  in 
the    following   language: 

Question:      What   did  you  do   then,    Doctor? 

Answer:      She  began   to  shake   from   tremors,    began  to 
show  evidence   of  having  another  attack,    so  we   picked  her  up 
and  carried  her  in   and  put  her  on   the  bed. 

Question:      What  happened  as   you   carried  her  in? 

Answer:      We   picked  her  up,    she  became   very   stiff   and  rigid 
around    the    legs    and   arms,    and  ceased  breathing. „    After  she 
ceased  breathing,    she  became   very    cyanotic,    or  black   in   the 
face,    and  we    laid  her   down  on   the  bed.      By   that   time-,  we -had 
her  on   the  bed.      I   went   out   and  prepared   a  hypodermic   injection 
of  morphine.      While    I   was   preparing  this   hypodermic,    probably 
a  minute   or   a  minute    and   a  half   of   time,    Mr.    Gosden   came   out 
and  said  it  was    all  over   and   I    rushed   into   the  bedroom.      She 
was   still  extremely    cyanotic,    dark   in   the    face,    and   apparently 
she  was    not  breathing   at   all,    so   I    gave   her   artificial    respiration. 
She   started  breathing,    so   I   went  back    and   finished  preparing 
the  hypodermic   and   gave    that   to  her.      Following   the   injection 
of    the   hypodermic,    she   quieted   down   and   I    requested   the    ladies 
present   there    to  get  me    a  glass   of  warm  water   and   a   teaspoonful 
of   soda. 

Question:      When  you  picked  her  up    from   the    floor   and 
took   her   into    the   bedroom,    is    that  when    this    first    convulsion 
that  you've   just   described  began?      Was    she   going   into   this    convulsion 


124 

when  you  picked  her   up   and   carried  her   into   the  bedroom? 

Answer:      She  was    just  starting  into   it   and  picking  her 
up  made  her  go  into   it  more    rapidly.      She  went   right  stiff. 

Question:      About  what   time   in  minutes   would  you  say 
that  she  was    in   the   convulsion   in  which   she  was    rigid? 

Answer:      About    three    minutes . 

Question:      Now,   will  you  describe   in  detail  her   appearance 
during  the   time   she  was    in   that   convulsion? 

Answer:      At   the  beginning  of    the   convulsion  she  was 
very   gray   and  pallid.      Tried   to  make   sounds,    sounds    like   groans, 
and   as    the    convulsion  became   very   severe,    on  handling  her,    she 
became   dark   in   the   face.      Her   face  was    contorted   to   a  hideous 
grin,   her  teeth   gritted,    and  her   arms    and   legs   became   extremely 
rigid.      Breathing  stopped  and  her   face  became    cyanotic. 

Question:      Cyanotic   is    dark   in   the   face? 

Answer:      Yes . 

Question:      How  were  her   eyes?      Could  she  move  her  eyes 
or  were  her  eyes    set? 

Answer:      I   didn't  notice    at   first   the   convulsion  except 
the   tremor  of    the   lids,   but    they  became   very   set   as    the   convulsion 
progressed. 

Question:      Did  you  notice  what    the   position  of  her  neck 
or  back  was? 

Answer:      Very   stiff,    rigid,    chin  was    thrown   up. 

Question:      You  mean,    as   you  indicate,    her  head  was    thrown 
back? 

Answer:      Her  head  was    not   throwr.  back,    but   the   chin 
was   held  up. 

Question:      In   the  position  you  have   indicated   did  you 
notice  her   feet  or   legs? 

Answer:.      Very    straight,    stiff,    rigid.      The    feet   turned 
down. 

Question:      You  mean    the    toes? 

Answer:      Yes. 

Question:      And  were   her   toes    pulled   down? 

Answer:      Yes.      As    I    remember,    it  was    about   like    that, 
for  instance. 

Question:      How   rigid  was   she  when  she  was    in   this    first 
convulsion,    Doctor? 

Answer:      Rigid   enough    that  you   could   put  your   hand   under 
her  head  and   lift  her  without  her  bending   in   the   slightest. 

Question:      So  she  was    if  her   feet   and  her  head  were 
suspended,   her  body  would  still   remain  suspended   in   the    air? 

Answer:    Yes . 

Shortly   after   this,    Laura  had   another   even  more   violent 
convulsion   in   the   course   of  which   she   ceased  breathing,    her 
heart   stopped,    and   she   died.       Dr.    Ream  gave    us    this    same    descriptic 
of   Laura  Gosden's    death  when  we    first  interviewed  him.    Naturally, 
we   asked   Dr.    Ream   for  his   opinion   as    to   the   cause   of    death. 
He    told   us    that  he    thought   it  was    some   kind   of   poisoning.       Her 
husband  had  told  him   that   Laura  had  eaten   some   spoiled   fish 
but   that   the   symptoms    that  he   observed   looked   like   the   symptoms 


125 


of   strychnine   poisoning.      The   Doctor   told  us   he  knew   of   no   disease 
that    could  produce   such   symptoms .      When  we   asked   if   it  was 
possible   for   the   death    to  have  been  produced  by   double    lobar 
pneumonia,    he    laughed   and  thought  we  were   joking.      It  was   his 
opinion  that   the  symptoms    that  he   saw   could  not   possibly  have 
been  produced  by  pneumonia. 

Early   on   in  our   inquiries,   we    talked   to  Dr.    Tiffany, 
the   Alameda  County   autopsy   surgeon,    showing  him  the   death   certifi 
cate  which  he  had  signed.      Dr.    Tiffany    told  us    that  he   could 
not   remember   Laura  Gosden   from  the   large   number  of   autopsy 
operations  which  he  had  performed  and  could  only   give   us  what 
his    notes   showed.      He   had  entered  in  his   notes    that  both    lungs 
were  badly    inflamed.      This    is   quite   usual   in  death    from  pneumonia 
and  he  had   concluded   from  these   appearances    that  pneumonia 
was    the   cause.      We    asked  Dr.    Tiffany   if  he  had  been   given   any 
history   of    the  woman's    illness,    and  his    records    indicated   that 
he  had  been  given  no   information   at    all,    only    that   the   attending 
physician  had  been   called  in  so  short   a   time  before    death   that 
under   the   statutes   he  was    not   allowed  to  sign   the   death    certificate 
but  was    required  to   refer   the    case   to   the   coroner   for   an   autopsy. 

We    repeated   to   Dr.    Tiffany   Dr.    Ream's    description  of 
Laura's    last  illness    and  of    the   description  we  had  obtained 
from  neighbors    and  relatives    of  her  apparently  healthy   condition 
the   day  before   she   died.      Dr.    Tiffany   told  us    very   emphatically 
that   if   these  were   the   true   facts    about  Laura  Gosden,    it  was 
impossible    that  her  death    could  have  been  due    to  pneumonia. 
He   said  Dr.    Ream's    description   of   the   convulsions  was    unmistakable 
and   could  be    caused   only  by   strychnine,    but  he   added  that  he 
could  not   account   for  what  he  himself  had  observed.      Strychnine, 
a-ccording   to   Dr.    Tiffany,    does    not   act   on   the    lungs,    does    not 
get   into  the    lungs,    and   does    not   affect   the    lungs   in   any  way 
and   could  not  have   produced   the   irritated   condition  which  he 
was    absolutely    certain  he   had  observed.      While   the   evidence 
of   strychnine    as    the   cause   of   death  was    getting  pretty   strong, 
we    realized   that  we  would  have   difficulty   in   getting  a   conviction 
of   murder  unless  we    could  explain   the   condition  of   the    lungs 
that  had   led   Dr.    Tiffany    to   conclude   that   the   cause   of    death 
was   pneumonia. 

Of   course  we   inquired  into   the  insurance   on  Laura  Gosden 
and   found  that   in   addition   to   the   $1,000   policy  written  by 
the   Pioneer  Mutual   Life    Insurance   Association   September   5, 
1934,   which  was    the   policy   mentioned   to  me   by    the   insurance 
man,    that   a  second  policy   in   the   amount  of    $10,000   had  been 
written  on   the  same   day   by   the  North   American  Accident   Insurance 
Company,    and   that   a   third   accident  policy   in   the   amount  of 
$10,000   had  been  written  on  September    8,    1934,    by   Provident 
Life    and  Accident   Company.      We    discovered   that   Louis    Gosden 
had  tried  to    collect   on   all   three   of   these   policies,    making 
statements   that  showed  very    clearly   that  he  believed  all   three 
of   them  were    collectible   under   the   circumstances    of  Laura  Gosden1 s 
death. 


126 


We   secured  photographic   copies    of    the   applications 
for  all   three   of   these   policies    for  insurance   on  Laura  Gosden. 
-We   also  secured  a  photographic   copy   of   the   claim   for  payment 
of   the  Pioneer  policy  which  was   made   out   in  Louis    Gosden 's 
handwriting   and  was   signed  by  him.      We    also  had  other   exemplars 
of   Gosden 's   handwriting.      Our  handwriting  expert   confirmed 
what   seemed   to  be    apparent  at   first  glance,    that   the   signature, 
Laura  Gosden,    on   all   three   insurance   applications,    had  in   fact 
been  written  by   Louis    Gosden. 

If  Laura  Gosden  died  of  strychnine   poisoning,   where 
had   the   strychnine    come    from?      Strychnine    can   only  be   purchased 
from   a   drugstore    and  every   purchaser   is    required   to   sign   an 
official   register  with    a  date,    his   name    and  address,    and   the 
reason   for  the   purchase.      We    decided  to  examine    all   the   poison 
registers    in   all   the   drugstores    to  which   Louis    Gosden  might 
have    convenient   access.      Gosden  had  ct  peculiar   easily-recognized 
type   of  handwriting  and  knowing   that   an   alias   might  well  have 
been   used  in   the   purchase,    the   examination   of    the  poison   registers 
was   made  by   officers  with   samples    of   Gosden1 s   handwriting  in 
their ' possession.      After   a   long  search  with   much   pounding  of 
pavement   a  poison   register  was    found  with   an   entry   in  Louis 
Gosden 's   handwriting.      The    drugstore  was    at   the   corner  of   96th 
Avenue    and  East   14th   Street,    only    a   few  blocks    from  Gosden 's 
home.      The    register  showed   that   on   September   27,    1934,    sixty 
grains    of   strychnine   sulphate    in   a   one-eighth   of   an   ounce  bottle 
had  been  sold   to   an   individual   using  the   name   of   L.    N.    Larson. 
The  handwriting  was    the  handwriting  of   Louis   Gosden.      The   reason 
given   for   the  purchase  was    "kill  kitty".      The   Gosdens   had  no 
cat . 

We    reasoned   that   if  strychnine  had  been   put   into   Laura 
Gosden 's    dinner,    the  poisoner  had  to  get   rid  of    that   incriminating 
bottle,    and   that   it  might  well  be  hidden  somewhere    around   the 
house.      A  very   thorough   search   of    the  premises   was    made  without 
any    discovery.      However,   we    received  some   devastating   information 
from  one   of   the   Gosden   neighbors,    a  Mrs.    Clara  Gonsalves. 
Mrs.    Gonsalves,   who   lived  next  door   to   the   Gos den's,    had  been 
awakened  during  the   night  by   Laura's    cries    of    anguish.      Looking 
through  her  own   unlighted  window,    she   saw   Louis   Gos-den  emerge 
from  his  house,    then  proceed  to  stand   in   the  shadow   on   the 
walkway  between   the   two  buildings.      He    remained   there   in   the 
shadows    for  something   like    45   minutes   while  his   wife  was    agonizing 
alone   in  the  house.      Then  he  walked  across    the   street   to   Mrs. 
Cereghino's   house    and  asked  that   a  doctor  be    called.      When 
the  walkway  where   Mrs.    Gonsalves   had  seen   Gosden   standing  was 
examined,    it  was    discovered  that   it  went  past   a  small   door 
underneath    the  house  which   could  be   opened   to   read  the   gas 
meter.      Inspector  Lloyd  Jester,    of    the  District  Attorney's 
office,   wriggled   through   this    little   door  with  his    flashlight. 
At   the  back   of   the  space,    near   a  sewer  pipe,    his    flashlight 
picked  up   the   sparkle   of  broken   glass.      With   great   difficulty 
he   was    able    to   extract   pieces,    including    the   paper    label,    which 
was    sticking   to   some   of    them.       On    getting   outside   he   quickly 


127 


determined   that    the   glass   pieces  were    from  a  small  broken  bottle. 
The    label  had   the   address    of   the   drugstore   at   96th    and  East 
14th   Street,    as   well   as    the  words    strychnine   sulphate.      There 
were    tiny    fragments    of   glass    on   the   sewer  pipe   under   the  house 
indicating  that   the  bottle  had  probably  been   thrown   through 
the   door   and  had  hit   the  pipe   and  shattered.      A   case   of   murder 
by  poison   against  Louis   Gosden  was    now   getting  very   strong 
indeed,   but   there   s.till   remainded  that  perplexing  question 
about    the   inflamed  condition  of    the    lungs    that  had   led  Dr. 
Tiffany    to   attribute   the   death    to   double    lobar  pneumonia. 

At   this   point   in   the   investigation,    being  quite    convinced 
that  Laura  Gosden  had  in   fact   died  of   strychnine   poisoning; 
the  question   arose    as    to  whether  her  body   should  be   exhumed 
and  tests   made    for   the  presence   of   strychnine.      Dr.    Gertrude 
Moore,    the  Director  of    the  Western  Laboratories    and   the   outstand 
ing  pathologist  in   the  East  Bay    at   the   time   and  the  best  expert 
that  we    could   find  on   the   subject   of   strychnine   poisoning, 
advised  us    that   if   the  body  had  been  properly   embalmed,    the 
presence   of   strychnine    could,    in   all  probability,    be   detected 
provided  the   strychnine  was    in   the  body    at   the   time   it  was 
buried.      Dr.    Moore   emphasized   that   if  strychnine  was    found 
in   the  body,    it  would  not  be   the  strychnine   that  was    the   cause 
of   death.      She    informed  us    that  when  strychnine   is    absorbed 
from   the   stomach    and  intestines   into   the  body,    its    chemical 
composition   is    changed  into  quite   different  substances.      These 
substances    act   upon   the   nerves,    causing  the   nerves    to   induce 
intense  muscular  spasms.      These   spasms,    she   said,    are   of   great 
violence    and  occur   in   all    the  muscles    of   the  body.      They   usually 
come    on   in  seizures,   with    three   or   four  minutes   between  seizures, 
and  with    the   seizures    growing   increasingly   violent.      Finally, 
the  seizures   become   so  strong  and  so  prolonged  that   the    chest 
muscles    cannot    fill   the    lungs  with   air   and   the   victim  suffocates 
and  the  heart   stops.      Substances    that   excite    the   nerves    in 
this   manner,    according   to  Dr.    Moore,    are   volatile   and   cannot 
be    located  or   detected  in   a  body   after   death.      However,    according 
to  her,    it  is    rare   that   all   the  strychnine    taken  by   a  victim 
is    absorbed  before   death.      Usually   there    are   traces-  and- sometimes 
sizeable   quantities    of   strychnine   left   in  the   stomach   or  intestines 
This   material  will  persist  indefinitely    and   can  be   identified 
without  possibility   of  mistake    long   after   death.      It   is,    as 
the  Doctor   continued   to  emphasize   to   us,    the   surplus    strychnine, 
the   left-over  part   that    can  be    found   and  identified.      We   soon 
concluded  that   it  was   essential   to   test   the  body    for  strychnine. 

Accordingly,    on  February    26,    1935,   with    the   prior 
permission   of   Laura  Gosden 's    father   and  mother,    her  body  was 
removed   from   the   grave    at   the  Holy   Sepulchre   Cemetery   in 
Hayward   in   the   presence   of   Dr.    Gertrude  Moore,    the   pathologist, 
Dr.    Reams,   her   attending  physician,    Dr.    Tiffany,    the   County 
autopsy   surgeon,    and  others   being  present.      The   remains   were 
taken   to   the  Western  Laboratories,  for   the  performance   of   the 
chemical    tests  . 


128 


There   are    three   distinct   chemical   tests  which    can 
be    used  to   detect   the  presence   of   strychnine.      All   of    them 
are    complicated   and    require    time    to    conduct.      Each    of    the 
three    tests   was    performed  twice  by   Dr.    Moore,    and   it  was    ten 
days    or   two  weeks   before   she   informed   us    of    the    results. 
She    reported   a  positive   indication   of    the  presence   of   strychnine 
in  every    test   conducted. 

We  had  been   able   to   accomplish    the   exhumation  of   Laura 
Gosden's   body   on  February    26  without    attracting   the   notice 
of   the   press.      We   thought  it   likely,    however,    that  Louis    Gosden 
would   learn,    in  one  way   or  another,    that  his  wife's  body  had 
been  removed   from   the  grave   and  was   being   tested  in   a   laboratory. 
We   thought   this   might  well   cause  him   to  disappear.      To  prevent 
this,   we   decided  to   charge  him  with   the  murder  of  his  wife, 
Laura  Gosden.      On  February    28,    Gosde.n  v/as   brought   to  District 
Attorney  Earl  Warren's    office  by   officers,   where  he  was   questioned 
by   the   District  Attorney  himself   in   the  presence   of    a  stenographer 
He  made   no   important   admissions  but  he   did  something  which 
was    even  worse    for  him:      He    told  the  District  Attorney    a 
story  which,    in  many   particulars,   we  were   able    to  prove  was 
false.      These   statements    and   their   falsity  were    later  introduced 
into  evidence    against  him   at  his    trial. 

During,  the   days    that  we  were  waiting   to   learn   the 
results    of   Dr.    Moore's    tests,    Inspector   George   Hard   of    the 
District  Attorney's    office    and  I    decided   to   run   out   another 
line   of   inquiiy.      Laura   Gosden's   parents   had  mentioned  to 
us    that   their  daughter  was   Louis    Gosden's   second  wife.      They 
had  been   told  that  his    first  wife  had  died  some   years   before 
when   they  were    living   in   Sunnyvale.      They   knew   nothing   of 
the   circumstances.      Inspector  Hard   and   I    decided  it  would 
be  well   if  we    found  out  what   they  were. 

Having   no  name   excepting  Gosden   and  no   address,   we 
went    first   to   the  County   Clerk's   office    to  see  whether   there 
•was    any   death    certificate    for   a  woman   named  Gosden  in  prior 
years ,      We   found  the   name   in   the   index   and,    looking   at   the 
appropriate    record,   we   encountered   a   certificate   of    death 
for   one  'Vivian  Taylor  Gosden,    dated  January    16,    1928.      She 
was    aged   17,    had  died  in  Sunnyvale,    and  her  husband. was    named 
as   Louis   Gosden.      The    certificate   showed   there  had  been   an 
autopsy  performed  by   the   Santa  Clara  County    autopsy   surgeon 
who   at   the   time  was    the   eminent  Dr.    Frederick   Proescher. 
After  examining  this    certificate,    Inspector  Hard   and   I    looked 
at  each   other  in   utter   astonishment.      The   certificate   showed 
that   Dr.    Proescher  had   ascribed  the   death   of    this    17-year 
old  housewife    to  double    lobar  pneumonia. 

The    record  also   contained  the   information   that   there 
had  been   an   attending  physician,    a  Dr.    Tolbert  Watson,    of 
Sunnyvale.      Inspector  Hard   and  I  went   to    the   doctor's    office 
in   Sunnyvale    to  see  him.      We    found   the   Doctor   in  his    office 
and,    after  identifying  ourselves,    Inspector  Hard   and  I    asked 
the   Doctor   if  he   recalled   the   'case   of    a  young  woman,    17   years 
of    age,    named   Vivian   Taylor   Gosden,    who  had   died   in   Sunnyvale 
on   the    16th   of   January,    1928. 


129 

"I    certainly   do,"    said  Dr.    Watson,  '"I   shall   never 
forget   it.      It  was    one   of    the  most  terrible   deaths    I   ever 
witnessed. "      He   explained  that  he  had  been   called   late   at 
night  by   a  man  who  said  his  wife  was    desperately   ill.      He 
responded   and  was    let   into   the   apartment  by   the  husband  where 
he    found   the  young   girl,    later  identified   as   Vivian   Gosden, 
undergoing  the  most   agonizing   convulsions.      She  was    in  one 
of    these    convulsions   when  he    arrived.      A   little    later  she 
relaxed,   her   color  came  back   and  she  was    able   to  breath   normally, 
but   in    three   or  four  minutes   she  was    again  seized  with   even 
more   violent   convulsions.      Every  muscle   in  her  body   seemed 
to   contract.      Her   toes  were  bent   down,    her  back  was    arched, 
her   face  was    contorted  in   a  hideous    grin,    and  there  was    an. 
absolutely  board- like    rigidity   about  her.      Dr.    Watson  said 
the   girl  had   at   least   two   and  possibly    three   of   these   seizures 
of   increasing  violence.      During   the   last   one   she   died.      Dr. 
Watson   told   us   he  had  had  many    cases    and  practiced  many  years, 
but   this    case  was    one  he   could  never   forget. 

We    asked  Dr.    Watson  what  had  happened   after   the   death. 
He   said  he  had  referred  the   case   to   the    coroner's   office   because 
he  had  been    called  in   so  shortly  before   death   that  he  was 
not   authorized   under   the  statutes   to  sign   the   death    certificate. 
He   said  he    realized  there  would  be   an    autopsy   to   determine 
the   cause   of    death.      We    asked  the   doctor  whether  he  had  ever 
communicated   the  history    of   the   case   as   he  had  seen   it  to 
the   autopsy   surgeon.      He   said,    no,    he  had  never  been  in   touch 
with    the    autopsy   surgeon   at   all.      We    asked   if  he  knew  what 
conclusion   the    autopsy   surgeon  had   arrived  at   as    to   the    cause 
of   death   and   found   that  he   did  not  know   that  either. 

We   told  Dr.    Watson   that  we  had  not   discussed  the   case 
with   the    autopsy   surgeon   though  we  had  examined  the   death   certifi 
cate    and   that   the    certificate   showed   the    autopsy  had  been  performed 
by   Dr.    Proescher,    and  that  Dr.    Proescher  had  indicated  the   cause 
of   death   as   being   double    lobar  pneumonia. 

Dr.    Watson  was    absolutely    astounded.      He   said,    "If   there 
is    anything  she  didn't   die   of,    it's   pneumonia.      That   is    absolutely 
impossible."      "Well,11   we    asked,    "what   is  your  opinion   as    to 
the    cause   of   death".       "Well,    I    am   no  expert  on    toxicology," 
he   advised,    "but   I    think    the  girl  got  hold  of   something   that 
poisoned  her.      What   I   saw   I  have   always    understood   to  be   the 
classical   symptoms   of   strychnine   poisoning.      I   have    not   looked 
it   up  but   I    am  not   aware,    offhand,    of    any   disease   or   any   other 
substance    that    causes    the  symptoms    that   I   saw." 

Either   from  Dr.    Watson   or   from   the    records    of   the   death 
that  were   on    file   in   the  Clerk's    office,    Inspector  Hard   and 
I    got   the  name    from  the   undertaker  who  had  handled  the    funeral 
and  the   embalming  of    the  body   of   Vivian   Gosden.      We  went  to 
see  him  with    the  Oakland   case   in  mind.      He   had   records    of   the 
case    and   remembered  it  well   enough.      The   undertaker  told  us 
that  when  he    came    to   pay    for   the   funeral,    Louis   Gosden  had  offered 
the  proceeds    of    the   $3,000   policy   of    life   insurance  which  he 


130 


held  on   the    life   of  his  wife,    Vivian.      However,    on  making   inquiry, 
the   undertaker  had  discovered   from  the   insurance    company   that 
while    application  had  been  made,    the  policy  was    not  yet   in 
effect    at   the   time   that  Vivian   died.      It  was    apparent,    however, 
that  Louis   Gosden  had  believed   that   it  was    in  effect. 

After  getting   the   name   of    the   insurance    company,    Inspector 
Hard   and  I  were    able   to   locate    the   agent  who  had   taken   the    applica 
tion   —   a  Miss   Dempsey.      Because   the   circumstances  were   so  strange, 
she   remembered   the. case   even   though   it  had  occurred  years   before. 
Miss   Dempsey   said  that  Louis   Gosden  had  made   out   the   application 
for  insurance   on   the   life   of  Vivian   in  her  office,    Vivian   not 
being   present,    and   that   thereafter  he   telephoned  to  her   repeatedly 
to   inquire  whether  the   policy  was    actually   in  effect.      She' said 
he  made    this    inquiry   at    least  five   times    and   that   the   last   time 
he    called  he  had  said,    "My  wife   is   going   to   Santa  Cruz.      She 
is    a   very   poor   driver.      If   anything  happens,    I  want   to  know 
if   I    am   covered."      Miss   Dempsey   said   that  her   employer  was    annoyed 
by   these    telephone   calls,    that   either  because    of   this   or  by 
mistake   she  had  told  Louis    Gosden  on   the   fifth   telephone    call 
that   it  would  be    alright,    that  he  was    covered,    that  his   insurance 
was    in  effect.      The   morning  of   the   next  day,    Louis   Gosden  was 
down   in  her  office   to  see   about   collecting  on   ifhe   insurance. 
Miss   Dempsey   asked  him  what  had  happened.      His    reply  was,    "My 
wife  was   sick.      I    gave  her  some   green  pills    and  she   died". 
It  seemed  understandable    that  Miss   Dempsey  would  not  have    forgotter 
an   incident  such   as    this   even   after  the   lapse  of   seven  years. 

If  Vivian   Gosden  had  died   from  strychnine   poisoning, 
as    appeared   to  be   the   case,    the  question   arose,    just   as    it  had 
in  Oakland,    Where  had  the  poison   come    from?      Inspector  Hard 
and  I   thought  we   should   canvass   the  poison   registers    in   the 
Sunnyvale    area  in  drugstores    just   as  we  had  in  Oakland.      Sunnyvale, 
in    1928,   was    a  very   small   town   indeed   and   the   number  of   drugstores 
in   the   vicinity  were   comparatively    few.      The  most   likely   drugstore 
most    likely  because    it  was    convenient   to   the  Gosden   residence   — 
had   changed  hands   several    times   during   the   seven  years    that 
had  elapsed  since  Vivian   Gosden 's   death.      A  poison   register 
for   1928   could  not  be    located.      We   never  did  succeed  in   finding 
any   record  of   a  sale   of   strychnine   that  might  be    relevant   to 
our   case . 

Inspector  Hard  and   I  were   still   running  out   the   details 
of    the    death    of   Vivian   Gosden   in    Sunnyvale  when  Dr.    Gertrude 
Moore   in  Oakland  announced  that   the   tests    for  strychnine   on 
the  body   of   Laura  Gosden  had  been   completed.      As   mentioned   above, 
the   results  were  positive.      Dr.    Moore,    in  addition   to   testing 
for  stry chine,    had  made    the  most   thorough   possible   examination 
of    the   exhumed  body.      She   stated   that   nothing   could  be    found 
that  was    in   any  way   inconsistent  with   Dr.    Tiffany's    observation 
at   the    autopsy.      Dr.    Moore   said  she  did  not  question   the   accuracy 
of   Dr.    Tiffany's    visual   observation.      She  was    sure    the    lungs 
had  been   inflamed,    though    not   from  pneumonia,    just   as    Dr.    Tiffany 
had  reported.      Dr.    Moore  was    unable   to   offer  any   explanation 
of   the    cause   of   the   inflammation. 


131 


Since   Vivian's    death    certificate,    like   Laura's,    assigned 
double    lobar  pneumonia   as    the   cause   of   death  when   all   the   other 
evidence   in  both    cases   pointed   to  strychnine,    Inspector  Hard 
and   I    realized  that  we   must   find  the   explanation    for   the   reason 
that   two   autopsy  surgeons   in   two  different   cases   had  apparently 
observed  similar  inflammation   of   the    lungs    on  which   they  had 
both    drawn   the  same    conclusions,    the   conclusions    in  both    cases 
being  manifestly   in  error. 

At   this   point,    Inspector  Hard   and  I    realized  we   must 
tackle    the   redoubtable   Dr.    Frederick  Proescher,    the   autopsy 
surgeon   of   Santa  Clara  County,   who  had  performed  the   autopsy 
on  Vivian   Gosden.      I   had  serious   misgivings    about   this.      Dr. 
Proescher  had  the   reputation   of  being  one   of    the   ablest  pathologists 
in   the    country.      He  had  recently   achieved  great   notoriety,    if 
not   fame,    as    the  pathologist   for  the   State   in   the  prosecution 
of   David  Lamson   of   Stanford  University,   who  had  been   tried  with 
immense  publicity  on   a   charge   of  murdering  his  wife   in   the  bathtub 
by  beating  her  on   the  head  with   a  piece   of  pipe.      On   the  witness 
stand-in   that    case,    Dr.    Proescher.  had  shown  himself   to  be    a 
man   of  very   strong   ideas,    very    forceful   in   their  presentation, 
and  very   tenacious    in  his    opinions    and   conclusions.      He  was 
a  Prussian  scientist,    true    to   type.      I  was    concerned  as    to  what 
his    reaction  would  be    if  someone   suggested  he  might  have   made 
a  mistake  in   the   autopsy   of  Vivian  Gosden  and  had  ascribed  her 
death    to  pneumonia  when,    in   fact,    she  had  died   from  strychnine 
poisoning.      Nevertheless,   we   had  no  alternative   but   to  make 
an   appointment   to  see    Dr.    Proescher. 

Our   reception  by    the   doctor  was    cordial    and   friendly. 
1   opened  the    conversation  by    telling  Dr.    Proescher  we   desired 
to   consult  with  him  about   the   recent   death   of   Laura  Gosden   in 
Oakland  under   circumstances    that   indicated  more    than   a  possibility 
of   murder.      The    doctor  had  read   about   the    case    in   the   newspapers. 
We   gave   Dr.    Proescher   to    read   a   copy   of    the   statement  made  by 
Dr.    Ream  describing  Laura  Gosden 's    convulsions    and   other  symptoms 
at   the    time   of  her  death   and  asked  him  if  he  had  any   opinion 
as   to  what   the   cause   might  be.      The   Doctor  said  that  he   thought 
there    could  be    no  doubt  whatever   that    the   symptoms  .that.  Dr. 
Ream  had  observed  were    those  of   strychnine   poisoning'  and  nothing 
else.      He   said  that   no  other  known  disease   and  no  other  poison 
could  produce   symptoms    such    as   Dr.    Ream  had   observed.      We    then 
told  him  about  Dr.    Tiffany's    autopsy   and  how  his    notes   showed 
that  he  had  observed   an   inflamed      condition   of   the    lungs,   which 
led  him  to   ascribe   death   to   double    lobar  pneumonia,    mentioning, 
of   course,    that  Dr.    Tiffany  had  been   given   no  history  of   the 
case    and  knew  nothing   at   all   of   the   symptoms    exhibited  when 
Laura   died.      Dr.    Proescher  said  he  was    not   in   the    least  surprised 
with   Dr.    Tiffany's    observations    or  with  his    conclusions.      In 
fact,    it  was   what  he  would  expect.      He   explained  that   the   convulsions 
of  strychnine   poisoning   are   usually    accompanied  with    a  good 
deal   of   vomiting   and   that   it  was    to  be   expected   that   some   of 
the   vomit  would  get  into   the    lungs,    causing  immediate   and 


132 

extensive   inf  lamination .      He   pointed   out  that   strychnine    leaves 

no  physical  signs    in   the  body,    that   it   can   only  be   detected 

by   chemical    analysis,    and   that   there  was   nothing  that  Dr.    Tiffany 

could  have   seen   that  would  have   suggested  strychnine,   while 

the   conditions    of    the   lungs   would  be  practically   identical   in 

appearance  with    that    caused  by  pneumonia,    even   though   the    cause 

was   quite   different. 

I   then  brought  out   a   copy   of  Vivian  Gosden's   death    certifi 
cate   signed  by   Dr.  .Proescher  himself   and  showing   that   seven 
years   before  he  had  performed   an   autopsy  on  Vivian   and  had  ascribed 
the    cause   of   death    to   double    lobar  pneumonia.      The   doctor  had 
no  memory   of   the   case  but  he   did  have  his    notes.      His   notes 
showed   that  he  had  observed  severe   inflammation   of    the    lungs . 
He  had   concluded   from   the   inflammation   that   the    cause   of   death 
was    pneumonia.      His    notes    indicated  that  he  had   received  no 
history   of   the    case,    had  been  given  no   information   concerning 
the   circumstances    under  which  Vivian   died. 

We   next  handed   to   the   doctor   to  read   a   copy   of    the   state 
ment  made  by   Dr.    Watson  describing  Vivian's    convulsion   and  other 
symptoms    at   the   time   of  his    attendance    and  her   death.      Dr.    Proeschei 
response  was    immediate    and   emphatic,    "There   is    not  the   slightest 
doubt".      He   said,    "The  woman  did  not   died  of   pneumonia,    she 
died  of   strychnine   poisoning   and  nothing   else". 

Sometime   during  this    conversation  we    asked  Dr.    Proescher 
if  he   thought  he  had  made    a  mistake    at   the   time   of  Vivian  Gosden's 
autopsy.      "Certainly    not",    he  bristled;    "I   never  make  mistakes, 
I   performed  the   operation.      My   observations  were    accurate    and 
as    complete   as    could  be   expected  in   the    absence   of    any   other 
information,    suggestion,    or  suspicion.      The    conclusion   I    reached 
as    to   the   cause    of   death  wc.s   entirely    reasonable    and  would  have 
been   reached  by   any   other  surgeon." 

We  were   told  by   Dr.    Proescher   as   we  had  been   told  by 
Dr.    Tiffany    that   there   is    no   requirement   of    law   that    an   autopsy 
surgeon  be   provided  with    a  history   of    the   case,    and   that   it 
is   very   unusual    for  him   to   receive   such   information.      Furthermore, 
the    autopsy   surgeon   is    under  no   duty    to   communicate    the   results 
of   the    autopsy   to   the   attending  physician.      The    autopsy   and 
the   death    certificate  may  be   public  records   but   the-  attending 
physician   is    not  going   to  know  what   is    in   them  unless   he   goes 
down   to   the   county    clerk's    office   and   looks    them   up.      If   this 
is    the   general   practice   of   autopsy   surgeons    and  physicians    in 
the   United  States,    as    I   believe   it  is,    I   began   to  understand 
what  had  puzzled  me    for  so  many  years    —    the   reason   there    are 
so   few   statistically    reported  murders   by   poison   in   the  United 
States . 

In   due    course    I    related   our   conversation  with   Dr.    Proescher 
to   Dr.    Tiffany    and  Dr.    Moore.      Both   of   them  agreed   that   if,    during 
convulsions,    vomit  were   inhaled  into   the    lungs,    it  would   cause 
a  highly    inflamed    condition  which,    on   visual    inspection,    would 
be   indistinguishable    from   the   inflammation    caused  by   pneumonia. 
Both   of    them  agreed   that  with   strychnine    convulsions,    such   inhalati 
was    not  only   possible  but  probable.      Both   of    them  believed   that 


133 

Dr.    Proescher  had  indeed  hit  upon   the   true   explanation   for  what 

he  had   observed   at   the   autopsy   on  Vivian   and  what  Dr.    Tiffany 

had   observed  in   the    autopsy   on  Laura.      Indeed,    the   two  doctors 

pointed  out,    the    fact   that   the   identical   inflammation   of    the 

lungs   happened   in   two  separate   cases,    both   of  which  were   undoubtedly 

cases    of   strychnine   poisoning,    proves    that   Dr.    Proescher's   explanation 

is    right.      Now  we  knew  we   had   a  murder   case    that  was    virtually 

airtight. 

Notwithstanding   the   strength   of   our   case,    Charlie  Wehr 
and  I,    at   this   point,    gave   serious    consideration   to   digging  up 
the  body   of   Vivian   Gosden   in  order  to  have   tests   made    for   the 
presence   of   strychnine.      Dr.    Moore    told   us    that  while   she   could 
find  in   the  medical    literature   no   case  where    the   interval  between 
death    and  burial   and   the   discovery   of   strychnine   in   the  body 
had  been  more   than   two  or   three  years    that   she  was    sure    that 
the  strychnine  would   last   and   could  be   detected   as    long    as    the 
body    lasted.      However,    if   the  body  had   decayed   to   the    extent 
that   the   internal   organs    could  not  be   identified,    then   it  would 
not  be   possible    to   find  the  strychnine  because    there  would  be 
no  way    of  knowing  what   to   test  or  what  was   being  tested.      In 
view   of   this    advice,   we    thought  we   should   get  such   information 
as  we    could   as    to   the  probable   state   of    the  body   if   it  were   exhumed. 

Accordingly,    Inspector  George   Hard   and   I  went   to   the 
cemetery   in   Santa  Clara  where   Vivian  had  been   interred.      We   intro 
duced  ourselves    to    the   cemetery   manager,   who  was    a  young  man 
in  his  naid- thirties  with   quite    an   enthusiasm   for  his   business. 
He    readily    identified   the  plot  where   Vivian  was   buried  on   the 
cemetery   map.      He    told  us    that   the  kind  of    casket   that  was    used 
would  have    a  good  deal   to   do  with   the   condition  of    the  body. 
I- ventured  the   supposition   that   if   the  burial  had  been  in   a 
metal   casket   the    chance   of  preservation  might  be  quite   good. 
"Oh,    no",    the   cemetery   manager  said,    "if   they  put  you  in   one 
of   those    tin    cans,    you  really  boil."      An   ordinary  wooden   casket 
would  be  better,   he   explained,    provided  it  was    not   airtight, 
provided  the  body  had  been  properly   embalmed,    and  provided  it 
was   buried  in   reasonably   dry   ground   that   did  not  become   saturated 
with  water  in   the  winter  season.      The    cemetery   records    showed 
Vivian  had  been  buried  in   a  wooden   casket. 

The    cemetery   manager   took   us    out   to   the  plot  where   Vivian 
had  been   laid   to   rest   in  order  that  we  might   look    at  the   surface 
drainage.      The    ground   in   the   area  was    irregular   and   certainly 
some   parts  were  higher   than   others   so   that   it  seemed  probable 
that   in  wet  weather  some   plots   would   collect  water  whereas    it 
would   run   off    from  others.      While  we  were    looking  over  the    lay 
of   the    land,    the    cemetery  manager  said   to  us,    "See   that   plot 
over   there  where   there  has   been  some    recent  work   done    (pointing 
to  a   location   nearby)?      Well,    that's   where   my  mother-in-law  is 
buried.      Two,    three  weeks    ago  we  had   to   do   some  work   on   a  waterpipe 
near   there,    so   as    long   as  we  were    at   it,    I    thought  we   might   as 
well  bring  up  my  mother-in-law   and  see  how   she    looked.      She's 
been   dead   about    a  year   and   a  half.      She    came   out   right  well. 
As   a  matter  of    fact,    I    called  up   the  wife   and  her  sister  so 
they    could   come    down    and   see  her. " 

"You  mean   to   say,"    I   said,    "that   after   a  year  and   a 


134 

half   she   came   out  of    the   ground  in   as    good   condition   as   when 
you  put  her  in?" 

"Well,    no,    not  quite,"   he  said.       "We  had   to  wipe   off 
the  mold,    of    course,    but   then,    aside    from   a   couple   of    green   spots, 
she    looked  nice,    real   nice.      Now,    you  can  see   that   the   ground 
over   there    is    a   little  bit  higher   and   is   sort   of   sandy    and  drains 
pretty  well.      Now,    this   spot  where  Vivian   is   buried  is    a   lot 
lower,    and  I    am   afraid  the  v/ater  may    accumulate  here   in  wet  weather 

"Well,    can^you  give   us   your   opinion",   we    asked,    "as    to 
what  we    could  expect   to   find  if  Vivian's    grave  was    opened,    consider 
ing    the   nature    of   its    location   and   the    length   of   time   she  has 
been  buried. " 

"I   don't   think  you  would  find  much,"   he   said.       "After 
seven  years    in    that    location,    you   couldn't   tell  what's   worms 
and  what 's   you. " 

We   decided   against  exhumation.      I    think   that   Dr.    Gertrude 
Moore  was    a   little  bit   disappointed  in  our   decision.      If  she 
could  have   found   strychnine   in   a  body    that  had  been  buried  for 
seven  years,    the   case  would  get  into   the  medical    literature. 
I   think   she  would  have    liked  that. 

The   indictment   charging  Louis   Gosden  with   the  murder 
of  his  wife,    Laura,   had  been  returned  by    the   grand   jury   on  March 
8,    1935.      It   took    about   a  day    and  a  half   to   select   a   jury   of 
twelve   and  one   alternate.      The   taking   of    testimony  began   on  April 
8,    1935,    and   concluded  on  April   27,    1935. 

The    testimony   ended  with   a   very   dramatic  incident.      Testi 
fying   in  his    own   defense,    Louis   Gosden,   while    admitting    that 
the   insurance   policies   on  Laura,    and  Vivian   also,    had  been  signed 
by  him,    claimed   that   they  were    taken  out  with    the   full   knowledge 
and   indeed   at   the   request  of  his  wives.      To  support    this    claim 
defense    counsel   called  several  members    of    the  Gosden   family   to 
testify   about  statements    that   they  said   they  had  heard   the   dead 
women  make    at   various    times    indicating  their  knowledge    of   the 
insurance  which   Louis   had  procured.      The    last  of    these  witnesses, 
and   indeed  the    last  witness   for   the   defense,    was   Lucy   Gosden, 
the   defendant's   mother.      She   testified   that  Laura,    and  Vivian 
as  well,   had  made    certain  statements    to  her  which   indicated   that 
they  had  known   all   about    the   insurance.      She   even   testified  that 
insurance  had  been   taken  out   on  her  own   life   by   Louis,,  who  had 
signed  her  name    to   the    application   and   the   application  was   produced 
to  support   this    testimony.      The    application,   which  was    dated 
in    1928,   bore   the   name   Lucy   Gosden,    and   the   signature  was    indeed 
in   Louis'    handwriting.      On    cross    examination,    Mrs.    Gosden   testified 
that   this   policy,   which   had  been  produced  by   the   defense,   was 
the   only   insurance   that  had  ever  been   taken  out   on  her   life   at 
any    time.      She  was    emphatic   about   this.      The   defense   rested  its 
case    at   this   point. 

As   soon   as   Mrs .    Gosden  had   left   the  witness    stand,    having 
testified  that   no  other   insurance   on  her   life  had  ever  been  taken 
out  by    anyone    at   any   time,    the  prosecution   offered   in   evidence 
two  more   policies    in   two   different   companies    at   a  much    later 
date,    the   applications    for  which  were   signed  Lucy   Gosden  but 


135 


in   the  handwriting  of   Louis   Gosden.      This    completed   the   taking 
of    testimony.      The    atmosphere   in  the   courtroom  was    electric. 
The   case  was    set   for   argument   again  the   next   day. 

When  Louis    Gosden  was   being   taken  back   to    jail   after 
the   conclusion   of   testimony,    an   incident   occurred  which   ought 
to  be   included   in   this    story.      Since   I   did  not   see   it  myself, 
I  will   describe   it   in   the  words    of   Jane  Eshleman,        who   covered 
the  entire    trial   fpr   the  Oakland  Post   Inquirer,    and  who   did  see 
it.      Under   the  headline    "Gosden  Shunned  by  Parents    at   Court   Session 
Blow   Stuns    Death   Trial   Defendant",   Miss  Eshleman       wrote    as    follows: 

"Shaken  by   the  bitterest  blow  he  has   suffered  since  his 
trial  began,    Louis   N.    Gosden   today  waited  in  his    county    jail 
cell   for   the    concluding  phase   of  his   murder   trial,    final   arguments 
to   the    jury,    scheduled  for  Monday. 

"The  blow   to   the   defendant,    accused  of   the  poison  murder 
of  his    third  wife,    Laura,    came   in   an   out-of-court  episode    at 
the   end  of  yesterday's   session. 

"As   he  was   being   led  back   to  his    cell    from   the    courtroom, 
Gosden   raised  his  manacled  hands    in   an   awkward  salute   to  his 
parents,    Nick    and  Lucy   Gosden,   who  have  been  in   constant   attendance 
at   the   trial. 

PARENTS    SILENT 

"But  the  gesture  had  no  answer.  Nick  and  Lucy  turned 
away  from  their  son,  giving  no  sign  of  recognition. 

"Louis  stopped,  then  dropped  his  eyes  and  walked  from 
the  room. 

"The   episode    came    after  Hart   Schrader  Jr. ,    handwriting 
expert,    had  declared  that   applications    for   two   insurance   policies 
naming  Louis    as    the  beneficiary    and  his   mother   as    the   insured, 
had  been  signed  by   the   defendant. 

"Mrs.  Gosden  had  testified  yesterday  morning  that  she 
knew  of  only  one  application  for  insurance  on  her  life. 

BARE    DISCREPANCY 

"The    document,    introduced  by   the   defendant,   was    in   a 
different   company   than   the   two  named  by   Schrader. 

"The   state   introduced  Schrader 's    testimony   in  support 
of   its    theory    that  Gosden  poisoned  Laura   and   also  h-is   s-econd 
wife,    Vivian,    in   the  same    "insurance    racket". 

"Schrader 's  testimony  yesterday  was  interrupted  by  an 
unusual  episode.  As  he  took  the  stand  Melvin  Belli,  attorney 
for  the  defense,  declared: 

"I    don't  know  what   this    testimony  will  mean/   but  we 
might  stipulate    to   the   signatures." 

FAMILY    PARLEY 

"Deputy   District  Attorney  Warren  Olney,   who  was    questioning 
Schrader,    informed  Belli   of    the   expected  significance   of   the 
criminologist 's    testimony.      Then   followed   a   conference   of  prosecu 
tion   and  defense    attorneys  with  Judge   Ogden. 

"Belli    then  asked  permission   for   a  private    conversation 
with   members    of   Gos den's    family. 


136 


"So  Belli,    his    associates,    Charles   Carlstroem   and  William 
Cleacak;    Nick    and  Lucy   Gosden;    Mrs.    Emma  Bellandi    and  Mrs.   Mary 
Radelevich,    the   defendant's   sister,    adjourned   to    the    judge's 
chambers  . 

"Five . . .10 . . . 15  minutes    ticked  by   on   the   courtroom   clock 
and  spectators    filled   the   intermission  with  buzzing   comment. 

OBJECTION  DENIED 

"Finally   £he    conferees    filed  out.      The   stipulation  was 
withdrawn   and  Schrader's    testimony   continued  over  Belli *s    objec 
tion   that   it  was    immaterial. 

"It  was    indicated  the   family    conference  was    called  to 
discover  whether  Mrs .    Gosden  had  known   of   the   insurance    applica 
tions  . 

"Prosecution   and  defense   cases  were   rested  at   the   conclusi 
of   the   session,   with    the   agreement   that   defense   attorneys   may 
reopen  their   case   Monday   morning  if  they    locate    the   agent  who 
took   the  questioned   applications. 

"Otherwise  Monday's   session  will   open  with   the  prosecutior 
first  argument   to   the   jury. 

"It  was    indicated  arguments  would  be    finished  some   time 
Tuesday  when   the   jury    is   expected  to  take   the  'case." 

A  small   item  of   interest   to  me    came   out    at   the   trial.      Mr. 
Melvin  Belli,    lead   counsel   for  the   defense,    developed   from  Louis' 
father  who  was    a  witness    that  he   had  been  born   in  Dalmatia   and 
that   the   name  Gos'den  was    the   approximate   sound   of   the   name 
in   Slavonian.      He   sometimes    spelled   it   Gozden,   he   said,    because 
it   sounds   the   same.      When   I  was   puzzling  over   this    name   on  my 
way  home    from  Martinez    I   never   imagined   that   I  would  hear   its 
origin  explained   from  the  .witness    stand   in   a  murder    case. 

Even  before   the   Gosden   trial  had  begun   Charlie   Wehr 
had  told  me    that  he  expected  me   to  make    the   opening   argument. 
Accordingly,    I   had  been   at  great  pains    to  prepare.      I  went  back 
to  the    law   school    library    and   looked   at   some   of    the   poison   cases 
•I   had   read  about  many   years   before   in   the  Notable   British   Trials 
series.      I    found  one    tried,    as    I    remember,    in   the   1860 's   or 
1870 's,    in  which   the   issues  were    remarkably    like   those    in   the 
Gosden   case.      Of   course    the   evidence  was    utterly    different. 
In  preparing  my    argument,    I    adhered  very   closely   to   this    British  . 
model.      My    framing  of    the   issues    and  method   for  presenting   the 
evidence  with   respect   to   them  were   practically    lifted   from   this 
British    case.      I    did  not  hesitate   to   put  into  my   draft  many 
sentences    and  even   one   or   two  paragraphs  without   change.      In 
delivery,    I   did  not   need   the   draft   I   had  prepared  and   used  very 
few   notes . 

In   arguing   a   case   to   a   jury,    I   see   no   reason  why    an 
advocate   should  not  borrow   from   any   source    and   to   any   extent 
that  will   serve  his   purpose.      But   I    admit   that  when  Charlie 
Wehr   and  Judge   Ogden,    after   the    case  was    over,    spoke   in 
high   terms    of   my   argument,    I    felt  embarrassed,    thinking   of   the 
amount  I  had   cribbed   from   the  Notable   British  Trial   series. 


137 


Anticipating   the  usual   style   of   defense    counsel,    I   kept 
my   opening  argument  in   low  key.      I   did  not   raise  my  voice   or 
use   excited  gestures,    believing   the  hard   facts    of   the    case   to 
be   more   eloquent   than   anything  I    could  say.      What   followed, 
as    reported   in   the  paper,    "in   direct   contrast   to  the   State's 
attorney's   soft   spoken  argument,    Belli "s    address    opened  with 
fiery   oratory  punctuated  by  pleading  gestures    and  shouted. denials 
of  his    client's    guilt.       'In  my   mind  Louis    Gosden   is    innocent 
and  I   pray   to  God, that   I   be   given  wisdom   and  wit   and  words    to 
prove   that   to  you',   he    cried."      Charlie  Wehr   delivered  a   final 
argument  that  was    the   coup   de   grace. 

The    jury   deliberated  only   an  hour   and  forty  minutes, 
returning   a  verdict   of   guilty   of  murder  of   the   first   degree 
without   any   recommendation   for    leniency.      Under   the   laws    that 
existed  at   that   time,    this   made   the  .imposition   of   the   death 
penalty  mandatory . 

After  the   jury  had  been  discharged,    the    foreman   came 
over   to  speak   privately    to  Charlie  Wehr   and  me. 

"I  want  to  say   that  you  boys   presented  the   evidence 
very 'we  11",   he   said,    "but   I   must   tell  you  that   all   the    jurors 
feel   that  you  missed   the  most  incriminating   point  in   the  whole 
case  .  " 

"Is    that  so",    said  Charlie,"   what  was    it   that  we   missed?" 

"Why,    the   insurance   on  Lucy  Gosden.      That  man  was    getting 
ready   to  murder  his    own  mother! " 

Charlie    looked  at   the    foreman   for   a  moment  but   all  he 
said  was,    "Now   that   just  shows   how   important   it  is    to  have   alert, 
intelligent   people   in   the   jury  box." 

Judgment  of   conviction  was    appealed  to    the.   Supreme   Court 
where,    in   due    course,    it  was    affirmed.      In   accordance  with   the 
judgment,    Louis    Gosden  was    executed. 

During   the  years    1933-4   there  had  been   a  great   deal 
of    agitation   in  California  to   change    the  means    for   carrying 
out   the   death   penalty   in   criminal   cases.      Hanging  had  been  the 
custom  from   the  earliest  days    of   the   State.      It  was    claimed 
that  hanging  was    needlessly    cruel   and   that   death   in   a  gas    chamber 
was    far  more  humane.      The   Legislature    finally   passed   a  statute 
abolishing  hanging   and  substituting   the    gas    chambe-r.  just   about 
the   time   of    the   Gosden  case.      The   new   law   did  not   apply    to  Louis 
Gosden,    however,    He  was    the   last  man   in  California   to  be   hung 
by   the   neck    until   dead. 

All   of   this   happened  a   long   time    ago.      At   the    time   of 
this  writing   almost   thirty-eight  years   have   past  since   Laura 
Cos den's   death.      Yet,    I    am  sorry    to  say,    what    to  me  was    the 
most   disturbing  thing   about   the  Gosden   case   is    just   as    disturbing 
today . 

Anyone  who  reads    this    account  will  perceive    that   Louis 
Gosden  was    not   only    cruel,    vicious    and   evil,    but   that  he  was 
also  thoroughly   stupid.      His    effort   at   concealment,    for   example, 
by   using   an    alias  when  he  bought  the   strychnine,    yet  going   to 
the   neighborhood  drugstore    to  make   the  purchase,    instead  of 
some   distant   city  where  he    couldn't  be   traced,    is    almost  moronic. 


138 


And  yet,    even   though   Gosden  ended  up   on   the   gallows,    it  must 
be    admitted  that  he  was    a  successful   murderer. 

Success    in  murder   is   killing   and  getting   away  with    it. 
Louis   killed  Vivian   Gosden   and   lived  seven  years  without  his 
crime   being  known.      He   killed  Laura  without   detection   and  would 
have    gone   on   indefinitely  without  being  suspected  excepting 
for   the  wildest  most   unlikely   kind  of    coincidence.      If   the  Pioneer 
Mutual   Life    Insurance   Association  had  had  a   claims    adjuster 
with   enough   experience   to  know   the   difference  between   an   autopsy 
and   an   inquest  Louis   Gosden  would  not  have  been   detected   as 
a  murderer.      Any   ordinarily   experienced  insurance    adjuster, 
wanting   to  know  whether  Laura  Gosden 's    sudden   death    could  have 
been   a  suicide,   would  have   gone   to    the  County   Clerk's   Office 
to   look    at   the   death    certificate,    and  seeing   that   the   autopsy 
surgeon   attributed  death   to  double    lobar  pneumonia,    he  would 
have   known   that  it  was    not   a   case   of   suicide   and  never  would 
have   gone    to   the  District  Attorney's    office    to   demand   an   inquest. 
Neither   I  nor   anyone   else   connected  with    later  events,    such 
as    the   abortion   case,   would  have   known   that   there  had  been   insuranc 
on  Laura's    life   and  an   autopsy   attributing   death    to  pneumonia. 
Without   this   knowledge   there  was    absolutely   nothing   that  happened 
later   that   could  have    aroused  our  suspicion   about  Laura's    death. 
Louis    in   reality  had  gotten   away  with  murder  once    again. 

The  question   that   disturbed  me    at   the   time,    and  still 
does,    is:      How   is   it  possible    that   a  man   as    stupid   as    Louis 
Gosden   could  have  killed  twice  without   detection,    each    time 
literally  before    the  eyes   of    a   competent   doctor?      This    I    find 
very,    very   disturbing.      The   answer  is,    of    course,    that   the    regular 
routine   for   investigating   a  death   from  an   unascertained   cause 
is   even  stupider   than   Louis   Gosden.      The   routine   does    not   require 
communicating   the  history   of    the    case    to   the    autopsy   surgeon. 
The    routine   does   not   require   communicating  the   results    of   the 
autopsy   to   the   attending  physician.      The   gap   in   our   defenses 
against  murderers    is   so  wide    that   even  Louis   Gosden   could  kill 
and  kill   and  prepare    for  more   killings   without  being   discovered, 
until    finally,    by   sheer   chance,    he    fell   under  suspicion. 

Had  Dr.    Tiffany   known   of  Laura  Cos  den's    symptoms    or 
had  Dr.    Ream  known   the   results   of    the   autopsy   investigation, 
detection  would   certainly  have    followed.      It    is    equally    certain 
that   Vivian's   murder  seven  years   before  would  have    come    to    light 
right   then   and   there   if  Dr.    Proescher  had  known   the    case   history 
or   if   Dr.    Watson  had  been   told  of    the   autopsy   findings. 

I    continue    to  be   disturbed  because    to   the  best  of  my 
knowledge,    nothing  has   been  done    from   that   day    to   this    either 
by  statute   or  by  medical   practice   to   integrate    the    case  history 
with    the   autopsy    findings    in   the   investigation   of   death    from 
undetermined   causes . 

This  brings    me  back    to    the  point  where   I    started   - 
the   curiously    low  statistics    on  murder  by   poison   in   the   United 
States.      It  has   been  a   long  time   indeed  since    I   have  had  any 


139 

reason   to  study    comparative   statistics    on  homicide.      It  hardly 

seems   necessary.      Every   day   our   newspapers    are   filled  with    accounts 

of  homicides.      In   a  year's    time  we  have    all   read  of  hundreds. 

Yet  how  many   have  been  killings   by  poison?      How    long   ago  was 

the    last  one?      Can   it  be    that  here   in   the  United  States   where 

we   never  seem  to  hesitate    to   use   every   other  method  of   assassinations 

that  we    just   do   not  kill   each   other  by  poison? 


[Mr.   Olney's  written  account  of   the  Gosden  case   ends  at   this  point,   and 
the   transcript  of   the   interview  resumes  on  the  following  page.] 


140 


The  Del  Mas so  Case 


Olney:   Did  I  say  anything  to  you  about  the  case  of  Mrs.  Del  Masso,  who  was 
charged  with  murder? 

Stein:   No.  What  was  important  about  that  case? 

Olney:   There  was  nothing  important  about  the  case.   It  was  one  of  those 

routine  killings  that  arise  so  often  out  of  the  rows  people  have  who 
are  living  together.  And  yet  the  case  has  always  stuck  in  my  memory 
and  it  illustrates  rather  well,  I  think,  how  the  trial  deputies  could 
work  with  the  inspectors  in  the  investigation  and  preparation  of  the 
case  and  also  what  kind  of  treatment  we  gave  to  evidence  that  tended 
to  exculpate  the  defendant.  Maybe  I  ought  to  tell  you  about  it. 

Stein:   Please  do. 

Olney:   Mrs.  Del  Masso  was  arrested  for  having  shot  and  killed  a  man  with 
whom  she  was  living.   I  have  forgotten  his  name.   The  arrest  was 
made  by  the  Oakland  police.   A  preliminary  examination  had  been  held 
in  the  Oakland  Police  Court  as  a  result  of  which  Mrs.  Del  Masso  was 
held  to  answer  in  the  superior  court  on  a  charge  of  murder .   She 
was  represented  by  the  public  defender.   At  this  point  it  fell  to 
Charlie  Wehr  and  me  to  present  the  case  for  the  prosecution  in  the 
superior  court  and,  as  usual,  I  was  assigned  to  get  the  case  ready 
for  trial. 

The  testimony  taken  at  the  preliminary  hearing  established  that 
Mrs.  Del  Masso  had  been  living  in  East  Oakland  for  some  time  with  a 
big  handsome  brute  of  a  man  who  was  an  ex-convict  with  a  long  record 
of  violence.   The  neighbors  had  heard  sounds  of  frequent  arguments 
and  quarrels  for  some  weeks .   Late  one  night  the  neighbors  heard  a 
lot  of  unusually  loud  arguments.   Suddenly  there  was  the  sound  of  a 
shot  followed  by  loud  screams  and  Mrs.  Del  Masso  came  running  out  of 
the  front  door.   She  was  all  bloody  and  screaming  that  this  man  with 
whom  she  was  living  had  been  shot  and  was  dead. 

The  police  were  called  and  made  the  usual  investigation.   Mrs. 
Del  Masso  talked  perfectly  freely.   Indeed,  at  the  end,  they  had  a 
hard  time  shutting  her  up.   According  to  Mrs.  Del  Masso,  she  and  her 
man  had  had  an  unusually  nasty  quarrel  with  a  lot  of  shouting  at  one 
another.   In  the  course  of  this  she  had  yelled  at  him,  "I  would  like 
to  kill  you!",  whereupon  he  had  gone  to  a  cupboard  from  which  he  had 
taken  a  loaded  38  caliber  revolver  which  he  put  into  her  hand.   Then 
he  stepped  backwards  in  front  of  the  fireplace  and  had  jeered  at  her. 
"You  haven't  got  the  guts!",  he  told  her.   "I  dare  you  to  shoot  me!" 
Mrs.  Del  Masso  claimed  she  had  burst  out  crying  and  had  sunk  onto 


141 


Olney:    the  sofa  behind  her  with  the  pistol  in  her  hand  and  then  had 

slumped  to  the  floor  when  the  pistol  went  off.   She  insisted  she 
had  not  aimed  or  even  pointed  the  pistol  nor  intentionally  pulled 
the  trigger. 

The  police  investigation  made  Mrs.  Del  Masso's  story  rather  hard 
to  believe.   The  shot  could  not  have  been  better  for  someone  who 
wanted  to  kill  the  man.   The  bullet  had  entered  one  of  his  eye 
sockets  without  touching  the  skull,  had  plowed  through  the  brain 
and  emerged  from  the  top  of  his  head.   Death  was  instantaneous  and 
the  man,  who  had  been  standing  in  front  of  the  fireplace,  had 
toppled  forward  onto  the  floor  where  the  police  found  the  body  and 
outlined  its  position  on  the  floor  with  chalk. 

The  police  also  found  the  bullet.  It  was  a  lead  slug  lying 
behind  the  man  on  the  bricks  of  the  fireplace.   The  bullet  was  not 
splattered  or  completely  out  of  shape,  but  it  had  deep  scratches 
on  its  side  with  material  in  them,  some  of  which,  though  not  all, 
was  reddish  like  the  bricks  making  up  the  sides  of  the  fireplace. 
On  the  bricks  of  one  of  the  vertical  fireplace  sides  and  about 
three  and  a  half  or  four  feet  above  the  spot  where  the  bullet  was 
found,  the  police  discovered  a  mark  where  a  small  spot  of  the  sur 
face  of  the  brick  had  been  scraped  away  and  there  appeared  to  be 
lead  markings  in  this  scratching.   Microscopic  examination  of  the 
brick  and  the  bullet  by  the  police  confirmed  the  fact  that  the 
materials  matched  and  left  little  doubt  that  the  bullet,  after 
traversing  and  emerging  from  the  man's  skull,  had  hit  the  bricks 
of  the  fireplace  and  then  dropped  to  the  floor  where  the  police  had 
found  it . 

The  pistol  had  also  been  found  by  the  police.   It  was  lying  on 
the  floor  in  front  of  the  couch,  but  as  the  couch  was  in  front  of 
the  fireplace,  it  was  only  three  or  four  feet  from  the  dead  body. 
It  was  the  pistol  particularly  that  made  Mrs.  Del  Masso's  claim  of 
an  accidental  shooting  appear  very  improbable.   The  pistol  was  a 
38  caliber  Smith  and  Wesson  revolver,  almost  new.   It  had  been 
purchased  by  the  dead  man  himself  not  long  before.   It  was  not 
hair-triggered  but  had  a  moderate  trigger  pull.   It  had  a  safety 
device  to  prevent  accidental  discharge  which  was  in  perfect  working 
condition.   This  device  was  a  panel  in  the  butt  of  the  pistol  which 
had  to  be  depressed  before  the  trigger  could  be  pulled  or  the  weapon 
fired.   There  had  to  be  pressure  from  one  direction  to  pull  the 
trigger  and  from  the  opposite  direction  to  depress  the  panel  on  the 
butt  before  the  pistol  could  be  discharged.   Furthermore,  those 
opposite  pressures  had  to  be  applied  simultaneously  or  the  weapon 
could  not  go  off.   It  is  impossible  for  such  a  weapon  to  fire  by 
being  dropped  on  any  kind  of  a  surface.   It  is  designed  to  fire 
only  when  the  butt  and  the  trigger  are  squeezed  by  a  human  hand. 


142 


Olney:    It  seemed  certain  in  this  case  that  the  pistol  had  not  fired  as  a 
result  of  having  been  dropped  on  the  floor,  that  the  shot  that 
killed  must  have  been  squeezed  off  by  somebody,  and  it  seemed 
probable  that  that  somebody  must  be  Mrs.  Del  Masso,  since  there 
was  no  question  of  suicide  and  Mrs.  Del  Masso  admitted  having  the 
pistol  in  her  possession  at  the  time  of  the  fatality.  The  fore 
going  facts  had  all  been  carefully  developed  by  testimony  and 
photographs  at  the  preliminary  hearing  in  the  police  court.  Mrs. 
Del  Masso 's  expressed  desire  to  kill  the  man,  followed  by  the 
perfect  shot  and  the  evidence  that  the  shot  must  have  been  squeezed 
off  by  her,  made  a  pretty  strong  case.  When  put  to  a  jury,  we 
thought  the  verdict  might  be  anything  from  murder  of  the  first 
degree  to  involuntary  manslaughter. 

George  Hard,  one  of  our  regular  investigators  for  homicide  cases, 
was  assigned  to  work  with  me  in  preparing  this  case  for  trial.  We 
got  to  wondering  whether  it  was  possible  for  us  to  develop  evidence 
that  would  show  more  positively  whether  Mrs.  Del  Masso  had  or  had 
not  aimed  that  pistol  when  it  was  fired.  We  wondered  if  there  was 
anything  more  in  the  room  or  the  house  that  would  throw  any  addi 
tional  light  on  this  question.  With  that  in  mind,  we  took  the  police 
court  testimony  and  photographs  and  visited  the  premises. 

The  house  was  still  empty  and  had  not  been  cleared  up  much.  Most 
of  the  blood  had  been  mopped  up,  but  the  chalk  outline  of  the  body 
was  still  marked  on  the  floor.  We  discovered  the  photographs  had 
given  us  a  somewhat  misleading  impression  of  the  place.   Evidently, 
a  wide-angle  lens  had  been  used  for  the  pictures  and  we  found  the 
room  was  actually  smaller  than  we  had  thought.   The  couch  was  closer 
to  the  fireplace  than  we  had  realized. 

We  tried  to  reconstruct  what  had  taken  place  according  to  the 
circumstances  as  we  understood  them  and  quickly  concluded  that  our 
evidence  did  not  make  much  sense.   There  was  no  doubt  that  the 
deceased  had  been  standing  on  the  bricks  of  the  fireplace  when  the 
bullet  hit  him  and  had  toppled  forward  on  the  floor.   There  was  no 
doubt  that  the  bullet  had  entered  the  eye  socket  and  had  encountered 
nothing  to  deflect  it  or  alter  the  direction  of  its  course  until  it 
had  come  out  of  the  top  of  the  man's  head.   There  was  no  doubt  that 
the  bullet  had  ended  its  flight  by  striking  the  bricks  at  the  side 
of  the  fireplace  only  three  or  four  feet  above  the  floor  and  had 
then  dropped  to  the  hearth.   However,  we  found  it  impossible  to 
reconcile  these  facts  with  any  imaginable  trajectory  for  the  bullet. 

We  experimented  by  ourselves  standing  in  front  of  the  fireplace 
and  then  twisting  and  turning  our  bodies  and  heads,  trying  to  line 
up  our  eye  sockets  and  the  tops  of  our  skulls  with  the  mark  on  the 
bricks  where  the  bullet  had  hit  before  dropping  to  the  floor.  The 
only  position  we  could  assume  where  there  was  anything  near  to  a 


143 


Olney:   line  between  our  eye  sockets,  the  tops  of  our  heads,  and  that  bullet 
mark  on  the  bricks  was  to  stand  backward,  bent  over  and  with  our 
heads  between  our  legs — an  absurdity.   Something  was  wrong  either 
with  our  facts,  which  seemed  most  unlikely,  or  with  our  deductions. 

After  this  frustration,  we  tried  a  different  approach.  We  tried 
to  reconstruct  events  exactly  as  Mrs.  Del  Masso  had  said  they  happen 
ed.   She  said  her  man  had  been  standing  in  front  of  the  fireplace — 
presumably  erect,  as  she  made  no  mention  of  any  unusual  position. 
She  said  the  pistol  had  gone  off  after  she  had  sunk  down  onto  the 
sofa  and  then  slumped  to  the  floor.   She  said  the  pistol  went  off 
when  it  hit  the  floor. 

To  test  this,  George  Hard  and  I  stood  on  the  bricks  erect.  We 
found  that  in  that  position  a  straight  line  from  the  tops  of  our 
heads  through  our  eye  sockets  would  meet  the  floor  not  far  from  the 
front  of  the  couch.   In  reverse,  however,  that  line  would  hit  the 
ceiling  and  would  come  nowhere  near  the  bullet  mark  on  the  bricks. 
There  was  no  hole  in  the  ceiling  nor  even  a  crack  in  the  plaster. 
We  did  see  something,  however,  that  no  one  had  noticed  before.   This 
was  a  dark  gray  mark  on  the  unbroken  plaster  as  though  someone  had 
marked  it  with  a  very  broad  lead  pencil.   The  mark  on  the  ceiling 
seemed  to  be  in  vertical  line  with  the  other  points  of  reference 
with  which  we  had  been  experimenting — the  spot  on  the  floor  where 
the  pistol  might  have  been,  the  eye  socket  and  the  top  of  the  head 
of  a  man  standing  erect  in  front  of  the  fireplace  as  determined  by 
the  chalk  marks  of  the  body — and  it  was  also  in  vertical  line  with 
the  bullet  mark  on  the  fireplace. 

After  these  observations,  George  and  I  got  an  expert  criminologist 
on  the  case  without  any  delay.   The  mark  on  the  ceiling  was  indeed  a 
lead  mark  made  by  the  impact  and  scraping  of  a  broad  piece  of  that 
metal.   Further  microscopic  examination  of  the  bullet  disclosed  that 
it  had  traces  of  the  ceiling  plaster  in  the  cracks  as  well  as  the 
brick.   It  now  seemed  clear  that  the  pistol  must  have  been  discharged 
on  or  near  the  floor,  that  the  bullet  had  passed  through  the  eye 
socket,  brain,  and  skull  of  the  man  standing  erect  in  front  of  the 
fireplace,  and  that  the  resistance  of  the  brain  and  skull  had  been 
sufficient  to  slow  the  bullet  just  enough  so  that  it  did  not  crack 
the  plaster  but  only  ricocheted  to  the  bricks  of  the  fireplace,  then 
dropping  to  the  floor. 

For  the  bullet  to  follow  such  a  course,  it  was  evident  that  the 
pistol  must  have  been  at  virtually  the  level  of  the  floor.   Perhaps 
Mrs.  Del  Masso  had  had  the  pistol  in  her  hand  when  she  slumped  or 
fell  from  the  couch,  thus  giving  the  necessary  squeeze  to  both  the 
trigger  and  the  safety  on  the  butt,  but  in  any  case,  and  no  matter 
how  perfect  the  shot  appeared  to  be,  it  could  not  have  been  delib 
erately  aimed,  for  it  had  been  fired  from  the  floor.   It  was  an 
accidental  killing  after  all. 


144 


Olney:   George  and  I  went  over  our  new  facts  with  Charlie  Wehr  and  he  agreed 
that  our  deductions  were  almost  certainly  correct  and  that  the  pistol 
had  neither  been  aimed  nor  intentionally  fired.  We  could,  of  course, 
have  presented  these  new  facts  to  the  court  and  moved  to  have  the 
charges  dismissed  in  advance  of  trial,  but  that  is  not  what  we  did. 
Mrs.  Del  Masso  had  been  arrested  and  charged  with  murder.   All  her 
neighbors  and  friends  knew  it.   If  the  prosecution  dismissed  the 
charge,  the  matter  would  not  receive  much  publicity  and  outsiders 
might  well  believe  that  the  action  was  taken  because  of  some  pro 
cedural  or  other  technical  defect.  We  thought  Mrs.  Del  Masso  was 
entitled  to  a  more  complete  public  clearing  than  that. 

Accordingly,  a  few  days  later  we  brought  the  case  to  trial.  We 
did  this  without  telling  the  public  defender  or  the  court  of  our 
new  facts  and  theory  of  reconstruction.   We  told  the  jury  simply 
that  we  proposed  to  offer  all  the  evidence  that  we  had  that  related 
to  the  shooting  and  that  it  would  be  left  to  them  to  decide  what 
crime,  if  any,  had  been  committed.  We  then  presented  all  the  evi 
dence  that  had  been  taken  in  the  police  court,  to  which  we  added 
our  discovery  of  the  lead  mark  on  the  ceiling  and  the  traces  of 
plaster  in  the  scratches  on  the  bullet.   We  produced  our  expert  who 
had  made  a  large  scale  diagram  of  the  probable  course  of  the  bullet — 
through  the  man's  eye  socket,  out  the  top  of  his  head,  ricocheting 
on  the  ceiling  to  the  brick  side  of  the  fireplace,  and  then  dropping 
to  the  floor.   The  diagram  clearly  showed  that  to  attain  the  high 
vertical  angle  through  the  eye  socket,  the  top  of  the  skull,  and  the 
mark  on  the  ceiling,  the  pistol  when  fired  must  have  been  at  floor 
level  in  front  of  the  couch  and  quite  close  to  where  the  man  was 
standing.   An  aiming  of  the  pistol  from  that  position  would  have 
been  impossible.   All  of  this  was  fully  consistent  with  Mrs.  Del 
Masso 's  statement  to  the  police,  which  we  had  already  put  in  evi 
dence. 

Mrs.  Del  Masso  was  promptly  acquitted  by  the  jury.   The  outcome 
of  the  case  got  a  lot  of  publicity  because  the  prosecution  had 
actually  proved  Mrs.  Del  Masso 's  defense  for  her.  Mrs.  Del  Masso 
got  a  complete,  well-publicized  vindication. 

I  think  this  case  demonstrates  that  as  prosecutors  our  objective 
was  to  develop  the  evidence  and  the  facts  whatever  they  might  be  and 
not  to  secure  a  conviction  at  any  cost.   I  think  it  shows  we  did  not 
withhold  evidence  which  tended  to  exculpate  the  defendant.   I  think 
it  shows,  too,  that  we  were  not  concerned  with  having  a  not  guilty 
verdict  on  our  trial  records  when  we  could  easily  have  avoided  such 
a  verdict  by  dismissing  the  charges  in  advance  of  trial. 

I  thought  I  should  tell  you  about  this. 


145 


Stein:   Yes,  it's  an  interesting  case. 

Olney:   Mrs.  Del  Masso  sent  Charlie  Wehr  a  Christmas  card  that  year. 

Deputy  Charles  Wehr  and  the  Point  Lobos  Shipboard  Murder  Case 

Stein:   What  were  your  impressions  of  Charlie  Wehr  as  a  deputy? 

Olney:   Well,  I  was  one  of  the  few  who  could  get  along  with  him.  The  other 
boys  respected  him  as  a  trial  lawyer,  but  they  didn't  like  to  try 
cases  with  him. 

Stein:   Why  not? 

Olney:   I  don't  know.   I  think  it  was  some  of  the  mannerisms  that  he  had. 

He  always  loaded  a  lot  of  work  on  the  junior  member  who  was  working 
with  him,  but  that  was  all  right  with  me  because  I  was  there  for  the 
experience.   He  used  to  drive  us  crazy  by  not  being  prompt  in  coming 
down  to  the  office  to  interview  people  we  had  brought  in  that  he 
wanted  to  talk  to  before  trial.   He'd  sometimes  keep  them  sitting 
around  there  for  a  long,  long  time  while  he  was  doing  something  else. 
It  wasn't  good  judgment  and  they  didn't  like  it  and  it  embarrassed 
us. 

But  I  could  get  along  with  him  very  well.   He  was  an  able  lawyer. 
I  learned  a  good  deal  from  him. 

Stein:   I've  talked  to  several  people  who  indicated  that  they  weren't 
entirely  pleased  with  the  way  he  handled  the  ship  murder  case, 
though  I  don't  know  what  that  was  based  on. 

Olney:   Well,  I  don't  know  much  about  that  either.   I  can't  remember  whether 
Charlie  was  involved  in  the  trial  of  that  case  personally  or  not. 
I  don't  think  he  was. 

Stein:   He  was.  He  was  the  chief  deputy  in  charge. 
Olney:   Well,  Earl  Warren  tried  the  case. 

Stein:   Yes,  Warren  was  in  court,  but  I  think  Charlie  Wehr  did  a  good  deal 
of  the  work.   There  were  several  deputies  involved,  but  I  think 
Wehr  was  in  charge. 

Olney:   After  Charlie  had  died,  I  think  it  was,  one  of  the  women  who  served 
on  that  jury  claimed  that  she'd  had  some  kind  of  dealings  with 
Charlie. 


Stein: 
Olney : 


Stein: 

Olney : 
Stein: 
Olney : 


Stein: 


146 


Yes.  Mrs.  Julia  Vickerson. 

Yes.  Well,  I  have  no  information  about  it  and  no  way  of  appraising 
it  at  all.   I  know  that  the  story  she  told  made  Charlie  look  pretty 
bad.  But  I  must  say  that  during  the  years  that  I  worked  with  him 
his  conduct  in  every  respect  was  excellent.   I  never  saw  anything 
out  of  the  way.   That  story  that  she  told  came  as  a  great  surprise 
to  me.   At  the  time  I  wasn't  willing  to  believe  it.   But  I  don't 
know. 


I  think  she  contradicted  herself  in  that  story, 
the  judge  believed  it  either. 


I  don't  think  that 


No. 

She  was  quite  an  eccentric  character. 

Yes.   Charlie  Wehr  wasn't  around  to  explain  what  did  happen.  I've 

always  had  enough  faith  in  him  so  that  I  believed  that  it  was  untrue 

but  without  any  real  way  of  judging  it.   I  just  believe  it  is  untrue 
because  it  seems  so  out  of  character  for  Charlie. 

Well,  that's  about  all  the  questions  that  I  had.   Is  there  anything 
more  that  you  wanted  to  add  about  the  DA  period  that  you  thought  was 
important? 


Olney:   No,  I  think  that's  about  all. 


147 


VII  THE  CALIFORNIA  ATTORNEY  GENERAL'S  OFFICE:   GENERAL 
[Interview  5:  January  24,  1972] 

The  1934  Reforms 


Stein:   Why  don't  we  start  by  discussing  steps  that  led  up  to  the  need  for 
the  1934  state  constitutional  amendments  reforming  the  attorney 
general's  office.  You've  mentioned  that  first  of  all  there  were 
some  bank  robberies  in  1930  that  began  a  series  of  steps  creating 
coordination  in  law  enforcement.   Could  you  describe  them? 

Olney:   Yes,  there  were.   First  of  all,  there  was  a  train  robbery  in  Contra 
Costa  County  at  a  little  station  called  Macavoy,  where  robbers  on  a 
Southern  Pacific  train  crawled  over  the  engine  tender  and  held  up 
the  engineer.  They  compelled  the  train  to  stop  at  an  intersection 
where  others  in  the  gang  were  waiting  with  an  automobile,  and  they 
robbed  the  baggage  car  of  a  large  amount  of  money — cash  it  was — 
that  was  to  be  the  payroll  for  the  Columbia  Steel  Works  at  Pittsburg. 
These  robbers  had  no  difficulty  at  all  in  making  their  getaway  in 
the  car.   When  the  alarm  came  out  to  the  sheriff's  office  and  the 
Pittsburg  police,  they  all  went  rushing  to  Macavoy,  where  the  robbery 
had  occurred,  while  the  robbers  were  on  their  way  elsewhere. 

About  eighteen  months  later,  there  was  a  repetition  of  the  same 
kind  of  robbery  at  Nobel,  which  is  just  on  the  west  side  of  El 
Cerrito  hill.   There  were  no  houses  around  in  those  days,  just  a 
little  siding.   Once  more,  the  robbers  on  the  train  climbed  over 
the  tender,  put  the  engineer  under  a  pistol,  and  compelled  the 
stopping  of  the  train.   There  was  an  automobile  there  and  they  had 
mounted  a  machine  gun  on  a  flatcar  so  that  they  could  cover  the 
entire  train.   They  went  over  to  the  baggage  car  with  a  suitcase 
full  of  dynamite  and  threatened  to  dynamite  the  car  unless  the 
clerks  inside  opened. 


148 


Olney:   Well,  they  opened  it,  and  the  car  was  ransacked,  and  once  more  the 
Columbia  Steel  Works  payroll  was  taken  away.   And  once  more  the  law 
enforcement  officers  simply  converged  on  Nobel  when  the  word  came 
in  about  the  robbery.   They  found  a  few  empty  mail  sacks  around, 
but  there  was  no  organized  coverage  of  the  area  to  block  off  escape 
routes  and  search  cars  on  the  road,  and  these  men  escaped. 

In  between  these  two  train  robberies,  there  had  been  a  bank 
robbery.   This  was  out  at  the  little  town  of  Rodeo  in  Contra  Costa 
County.   A  gang  there  had  come  into  the  bank  early  in  the  morning 
when  it  was  first  opened  and  held  up  the  bank  and  everybody  in  it 
at  the  point  of  a  pistol,  and  got  a  considerable  amount  of  cash. 
While  this  was  going  on,  the  local  constable,  Jerry  McDonald,  walked 
into  the  bank  not  knowing  what  was  going  on,  and  when  he  saw  there 
was  a  robbery  underway  he  started  to  reach  for  his  pistol,  and  was 
immediately  shot.   They  shot  him  twice.   McDonald  fell  to  the  ground, 
but  got  his  pistol  out  and  did  some  shooting  himself. 

He  didn't  die  right  away,  and  before  he  died,  in  the  statement  he 
made,  he  said  he  was  sure  he  had  hit  the  man  who  seemed  to  be  the 
leader  of  this  outfit.   He  said  that  he  had  aimed  deliberately  at 
him,  and  he  could  see  the  man  stagger  when  the  bullet  hit  him.   It 
turned  out  later  that  Jerry  McDonald  was  right.  He  had  hit  the 
bandit,  but  he  was  wearing  a  bulletproof  vest  and  it  only  made  a 
dent.   The  dented  vest  was  found  much  later.   But  they  got  away 
there  once  more.   Rodeo  had  only  a  few  roads  into  the  place,  and  yet 
it  never  occurred  to  anybody  to  cover  those  roads  and  to  stop  every 
body  who  was  coming  out.   The  officers  all  went  into  Rodeo  with 
sirens  blowing — the  one  place  where  by  that  time  the  robbers  would 
certainly  not  be  found. 

Now,  this  kind  of  thing  going  on  over  a  period  of  years  made  a 
big  impression  on  law  enforcement  officers  in  Alameda  and  Contra 
Costa  County,  as  well.   All  of  us  came  to  realize  that  there  was  a 
very  real  need  for  planning  for  this  kind  of  an  emergency,  and  that 
with  a  proper  plan,  so  that  the  key  road  intersections  could  be 
covered,  on  short  notice,  with  certain  people  assigned  to  do  certain 
things,  this  kind  of  crime  couldn't  be  successful. 

The  first  step  that  was  taken  along  that  line  that  I  know  of  was 
by  Earl  Warren  and  Chief  Greening  of  the  Berkeley  Police  Department. 
They  interested  others  in  other  law  enforcement  agencies,  the 
sheriff's  office  and  the  Oakland  police  and  whatnot,  in  working  out 
an  emergency  plan  for  the  kind  of  emergency  that  I've  just  described. 
They  didn't  at  first,  as  I  recall,  try  to  bring  in  anyone  outside 
the  county.   But  they  worked  on  these  plans.   They  had  studies  made 
of  the  roads  and  of  the  directions,  and  they  also  compiled  a  chart 
of  the  residences  of  the  law  enforcement  officers  as  well  as  the 
offices,  and  they  actually  assigned  certain  officers  to  go  to 


149 


Olney:   certain  places  whenever  the  proper  signal  came.  Then  these  plans 
were  actually  tested  in  trial  runs  to  see  how  they  would  work,  and 
they  seemed  to  work  very  well. 

Experiences  of  this  kind,  and  many  others  as  well,  had  led  Earl 
Warren  to  the  belief  that  one  of  the  great  weaknesses  in  law  enforce 
ment  all  over  the  state  was  the  lack  of  organization  and  coordination 
between  law  enforcement  agencies  at  city  and  county  and  even  the 
state  level.  He  became  convinced  that  it  was  necessary  to  change 
that. 

He  gave  some  thought,  I  know,  at  the  outset  to  the  possibility  of 
a  system  of  state  police,  and  then  discarded  that  thought.   That 
system  had  been  tried  in  states  like  Pennsylvania,  for  example.  He 
thought  that  it  was  important  to  continue  to  have  local  control  of 
the  law  enforcement  agencies ,  and  that  the  necessary  degree  of 
coordination  and  cooperation  could  be  achieved,  still  keeping  local 
control. 

Then  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  way  this  could  best  be 
done  would  be  by  authorizing  the  attorney  general,  who  was  the 
principal  lawyer  for  the  state,  to  participate  in  law  enforcement, 
and  become  responsible  for  law  enforcement,  in  about  the  same  way 
the  Attorney  General  of  the  United  States  is  responsible  for  the 
enforcement  of  federal  statutes.   Under  the  federal  system,  the 
attorney  general  has  this  responsibility,  but  he  does  not  himself 
head  or  operate  the  federal  law  enforcement  agencies  like  the  secret 
service  and  the  treasury  agents  and  customs  and  so  forth.   The  FBI 
is  the  only  federal  agency  that's  in  his  department. 

There  were  other  changes  in  the  law  that  Earl  Warren  thought  were 
highly  desirable.   But  these  had  to  do  with  procedures  in  court, 
such  as  permitting  the  judge  to  comment  on  the  evidence,  and  not 
just  sit  on  the  bench  like  an  owl,  as  was  the  custom.   In  the 
federal  courts,  from  the  beginning,  the  judge  was  always  authorized 
to  express  his  own  views  to  the  jury  as  to  what  he  thought  the 
evidence  amounted  to. 

Then  there  was  the  idea  that  if  a  defendant  failed  to  take  the 
stand  to  give  his  account  of  events  which  were  in  evidence  against 
him,  of  which  he  must  have  had  personal  knowledge,  it  would  be  in 
order  for  the  district  attorney  in  argument,  or  for  the  court  in 
its  comments,  to  remark  on  the  failure  of  the  defendant  to  explain 
what  had  been  offered  in  evidence  against  him. 

Then  there  was  a  fourth  amendment  that  was  more  Earl's  idea,  I 
think,  than  anyone  else's,  and  was  more  important  than  would  seem 
to  be  the  case.   This  would  permit  a  defendant  who  was  brought 
before  a  police  court  for  arraignment,  if  he  had  counsel,  to  enter 
a  plea  of  guilty,  and  then  be  sent  without  further  delay  direct  to 
the  superior  court,  where  his  case  could  be  disposed  of. 


150 


Olney:   Now,  this  saved  a  great  deal  of  time  in  the  process.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  about  eighty  percent,  maybe  more,  of  defendants  arrested  do 
not  want  to  have  trials.   They  want  to  enter  their  pleas  and  it's 
not  fair  to  have  them  sitting  around  for  months  waiting  to  appear 
before  a  judge  in  order  to  have  their  cases  disposed  of  when  all 
they  want  to  do  is  enter  a  plea  of  guilty. 

To  accomplish  these  things  the  state  constitution  had  to  be  amend 
ed,  and  so  proposals  were  drafted.   They  were  drafted,  I  think,  in 
Earl  Warren's  office.   I  know  one  of  them  was,  because  I  took  some 
part  in  it. 

Stein:   Which  one  was  that? 

Olney:   It  was  on  permitting  the  judge  to  comment  on  the  evidence.   Signa 
tures  were  obtained,  and  they  were  put  on  the  ballot.  Now,  it's  of 
some  interest  that  I  find  an  article  from  the  Tax  Digest  written  by 
Earl  Warren  on  all  four  of  these  proposals ,  explaining  them  and 
advocating  their  adoption.   It's  interesting  to  note  that  this 
article  was  published  in  the  San  Diego  Transcript  on  November  6, 
1934.   It's  of  interest  because  of  what  happened  directly  after  that. 

Within  a  very  few  days,  this  sensational  case  broke  in  Santa  Clara 
County  where  a  young  man  named  Brooke  Hart  was  kidnaped  and  held  for 
ransom.   Ransom  notes  were  received.   (Let's  see,  what  did  I  say  the 
date  of  his  kidnaping  was?) 

Stein:   The  9th  of  November. 

Olney:   Yes,  the  9th  of  November.  Well,  as  you  can  see,  it's  only  three 

days  after  Earl  had  been  speaking  about  these  amendments  when  this 
kidnaping  took  place.   The  investigation  dragged  for  a  few  days. 
Finally  the  FBI  cracked  the  case,  and  two  men  were  arrested  and 
made  a  confession  that  they  had  murdered  Brooke  Hart,  and  that  his 
body  was  in  the  Bay  near  the  San  Mateo  Bridge. 

Incidentally,  the  exact  place  where  he  was  killed  was  on  the 
part  of  the  bridge  that  is  in  Alameda  County.   If  these  two  men 
were  to  be  tried  for  murder,  they  would  be  tried  in  Alameda  County, 
and  it  would  probably  have  devolved  on  Charlie  Wehr  and  me  to  try 
the  case.   So,  of  course,  we  were  interested  in  the  matter  right  from 
the  outset,  as  soon  as  the  place  of  this  murder  was  discovered. 

The  kidnapers  were  put  in  the  jail  in  Santa  Clara  County,  and  on 
November  17,  I  think  it  was,  a  mob  broke  into  the  jail  and  took  them 
out  to  the  square  in  front  of  the  jail  and  hung  them  from  a  tree. 

Stein:   It  was  the  27th. 


151 


Olney:   Oh,  the  27th,  yes.  Well,  of  course,  this  kidnaping  and  the  investi 
gation  of  the  murder,  followed  by  the  lynching,  got  publicity  all 
over  California  as  well  as  all  the  United  States,  and  brought  the 
needs  of  law  enforcement  and  law  enforcement  agencies  before  the 
public  in  a  very,  very  vivid  way.   I  think  it's  fair  to  say  that 
Earl  Warren  took  full  advantage  of  that.   The  timing  was  right.   I 
note  an  example  of  that.   In  a  newspaper  clipping  dated  November 
18th,  there's  a  report  that  the  Alameda  County  Anti-Racket  Council 
had  that  day  organized  a  special  kidnaping  squad  for  investigating, 
and  for  handling  with  emergency  plans  and  investigation,  kidnapings 
of  the  kind  that  they  had  had  in  Santa  Clara  County. 

Perhaps  I  should  have  made  mention  before  this  of  what  the  Anti- 
Racket  Council  was.  It  was  an  outgrowth,  I  think  one  can  say,  of 
these  planning  functions  that  had  begun  after  these  train  robberies 
that  I  described.   Dick  Chamberlain  and  others  can  describe  this  in 
far  greater  detail  than  I  can.  Dick  Chamberlain  took  part  in  it, 
and  I  know  that  you  have  talked  to  him. 

As  far  back  as  June  17,  1933,  a  formal  organization  called  the 
Anti-Racket  Council  was  organized  by  Earl  Warren.  He  was  the  first 
chairman  of  it,  with  the  active  participation  of  the  FBI,  the  police 
chiefs  in  Alameda  County,  the  sheriff's  office,  and  other  agencies. 
That  had  for  its  purpose  the  study  of  rackets.  They  were  thinking 
primarily  of  extortion  rackets  at  the  time  that  were  prevalent  in 
other  parts  of  the  state  and  other  parts  of  the  country,  and  would 
have  been  prevalent  here  if  proper  planning  and  steps  had  not  been 
taken  to  forestall  this. 

We  had  had  one  example  of  an  attempt  by  Chicago  gangsters  to 
start  an  extortion  racket  in  the  cleaning  and  dyeing  business.   They 
had  formed  a  phony  association  and  were  demanding  that  all  cleaners 
and  dyers  join  the  association  and  pay  these  dues,  which  were  nothing 
but  extortion  money,  and  then  when  some  of  them  did  not,  they  hired 
people  to  go  to  the  plants  of  the  dissenting  companies  and  throw 
acid  on  the  clothes,  which  they  did.   But  this  was  broken  up  with  a 
criminal  prosecution  as  promptly  as  possible.  But  it  was  a  threat 
of  that  kind  of  organization  that  led  Earl  to  believe  that  the  way 
to  forestall  that  was  to  study  this  kind  of  racket  and  to  make  plans 
with  the  agencies  who  would  be  concerned  with  it,  and  particularly 
to  alert  the  law  enforcement  agencies  as  a  group  to  what  was  going 
on,  so  that  they  would  have  a  common  fund  of  knowledge  about  this 
and  could  have  a  united  front.   This  is  what  is  involved  in  their 
exchanging  information.   This  was  not  a  system  of  running  dossiers 
on  private  persons,  things  of  this  kind.   It  was  an  attempt  to  out 
line  the  techniques  used  in  these  organized  efforts  to  extort  money 
from  business,  industry,  and  sometimes  from  private  individuals. 


152 


Olney:   Now,  that  had  been  an  active  organization  starting  in  June,  1933, 
and  when  this  kidnaping  came  along  the  occasion  arose  for  setting 
up  this  kidnaping  squad.   The  hope  was  that  the  authorities  in  Santa 
Clara  County,  Contra  Costa  County,  and  San  Francisco  would  take 
active  parts  in  it  too.   I  don't  know  how  active  they  were.  My 
impression  is  there  were  occasions  when  they  did  take  part,  where 
information  was  exchanged  with  them,  but  I  don't  believe  it  was  done 
on  the  same  regular,  routine  basis  on  which  this  kind  of  information 
and  planning  was  carried  on  in  Alameda  County. 

It  was  not  long  after  the  Hart  kidnaping  and  murder  that  the 
election  was  held  on  these  amendments  to  the  state  constitution, 
all  of  which  were  intended  and  designed  to  strengthen  the  organiza 
tion  of  law  enforcement  agencies  and  to  eliminate  technicalities  in 
legal  proceedings  that  seemed  to  be  unnecessary.   I  have  no  doubt 
at  all  that  the  Hart  kidnaping,  as  well  as  other  sensational  crimes 
of  the  time,  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  passage  of  those  amend 
ments.   They  were  passed  overwhelmingly. 


Putting  the  Reforms  to  Work 

Stein:   Once  the  amendments  were  in  operation  in  the  attorney  general's 
office — and  I'm  talking  now  about  after  Warren  became  attorney 
general;  we  were  talking  about  this  the  other  day  when  we  had  lunch 
with  the  Chief  Justice* — I  wonder  if  there  was  a  problem  with  local 
law  enforcement  people  trying  to  pass  the  buck  to  the  attorney 
general's  office  to  get  out  of  a  ticklish  spot?   I  think  he  mentioned 
that  one  of  the  problems  was  that  there  was  a  very  small  number  of 
investigators  in  the  office,  so  it  really  wasn't  possible  for  the 
attorney  general  to  step  in  in  too  many  cases. 

Olney:   Well,  that's  quite  correct.  When  the  amendments  were  passed,  U.S. 
Webb  was  still  attorney  general,  and  although  I  don't  think  he  had 
any  great  enthusiasm  for  the  amendments,  he  was  an  honest,  able 
attorney  general.   He  was  getting  to  be  a  pretty  old  man,  but  he 
did  not  ignore  them. 


*See  Warren,  Earl,  an  oral  history  interview  currently  in  process, 
The  Bancroft  Library,  University  of  California,  Berkeley. 


153 


Olney:   He  appointed  an  investigative  staff  in  his  own  office.   Henry  Dietz 
was  in  charge  of  it.  He  had  Red  Griffin,  who  had  been  chief  of 
police  in  Salinas,  and  Joe  Schoales,  who  had  an  FBI  background,  and 
then  he  had  Fred  Henderson  in  Los  Angeles,  an  investigator  there. 
They  were  competent  men,  and  General  Webb  moved  in  on  a  certain 
number  of  activities  that  were  illegal.   He  took  some  steps  with 
respect  to  gamblers.   But  he  had  not  had  the  authority  long  enough, 
really,  to  make  much  impression  or  much  headway  until  Earl  Warren 
succeeded  him  as  attorney  general. 

Warren's  first  appointee  in  charge  of  the  criminal  work  of  the 
office  was  Charles  Wehr,  who  came  from  the  Alameda  County  District 
Attorney's  Office.   He  was  the  man  under  whom  I  worked  in  the  trial 
of  the  homicide  cases  there.   At  the  time,  I  was  in  private  practice. 
The  first  thing  they  tackled  when  Charlie  came  and  took  the  position 
was  the  dog  tracks.  You  have  had  from  Earl  Warren  himself  a  better 
account  of  what  happened  to  the  dog  tracks  than  I  can  give  you.*  I 
was  not  in  the  office.   They  did  put  them  out  of  business,  and  they 
were  out  of  business  by  the  time  I  got  there. 

Charlie  died;  he  got  leukemia,  and  died  very  suddenly,  and  it 
happened  that  my  father,  with  whom  I  was  practicing,  had  died  in 
February.   I  decided  not  to  stay  in  his  firm,  and  Earl  Warren  asked 
me  if  I  would  come  and  take  Charlie's  position  and  head  up  the 
criminal  work  in  the  office.   I  went  there,  I  believe,  in  May  of 
1939. 

I  took  over  as  the  lawyer,  but  the  man  who  was  already  there  in 
charge  as  the  chief  investigator  was  Oscar  Jahnsen.  He  was  from 
the  district  attorney's  office  too,  and  a  man  with  whom  I  had  worked 
for  years  when  I  was  in  the  district  attorney's  office.   The  others 
that  General  Webb  had  on  his  staff  Earl  kept.   Henry  Dietz,  however, 
who  had  been  the  chief  investigator,  was  a  lawyer  and  wanted  to 
practice  law.   He  had  been  an  FBI  investigator.   He  had  handled  this 
investigative  work  for  General  Webb,  but  he  became  one  of  the  lawyers 
in  my  legal  actvities. 

We  then  had  to  meet  in  a  practical  way  the  effect  of  this  consti 
tutional  amendment,  the  fact  that  the  attorney  general  had  these 
responsibilities,  and  we  found  out  that  it's  one  thing  to  put  it  in 
law,  or  in  a  constitution,  and  it's  quite  another  thing  to  carry  it 


''See  Warren,  Earl,  an  oral  history  interview,  The  Bancroft  Library. 


154 


Olney:   out.   Our  resources  were  incredibly  limited.  We  had  for  fifty-eight 
counties  in  this  huge  state  only  the  investigators  that  I  have  named, 
and  clearly  you  cannot  police  an  area  like  that  with  such  a  small 
staff. 

The  most  blatant  and  widespread  violations  of  law  that  we  had  to 
meet  were  gambling,  prostitution,  and  bunco  rackets,  to  some  extent. 
These  are  activities  that  cannot  go  on  without  the  connivance,  at 
least,  and  usually  with  the  corruption  of  the  local  law  enforcement 
agencies.  When  you  find  activities  like  that  going  on,  somebody  is 
being  paid  off,  sometimes  indirectly  and  not  infrequently  politically. 
It  just  is  most  difficult  for  a  sheriff  or  district  attorney  or 
police  chief  to  close  down  on  activities  that  are  being  supported  by 
the  people  who  have  appointed  him  or  elected  him. 

So  our  problem,  the  practical  problem,  was  how,  with  a  group  such 
as  we  had,  to  get  sheriffs  and  district  attorneys  to  perform  their 
duties,  so  that  we  would  have  an  even-handed  enforcement  of  the  law 
throughout  the  state.  We  didn't  succeed  completely,  but  we  did 
succeed  to  an  appreciable  extent.   It  was  done  by  constant  interviews 
with  the  officials  involved  at  which  we  would  present  them  with  the 
facts.  We  were  able,  with  the  staff  we  had,  plus  the  assistance  we 
could  get  elsewhere,  to  develop  the  facts  as  to  what  was  going  on. 
We  would  lay  these  facts  before  the  officials  and  in  most  cases  that 
produced  action. 

We  found,  especially  with  those  where  politics  were  involved, 
that  the  official  who  had  failed  to  act  was  glad  to  be  confronted 
with  this,  because  he  could  then  take  what  we  had  given  him  to  the 
others  concerned  and  say,  "Look,  I  have  no  alternative.   I've  got 
to  go  ahead.   If  I  don't,  the  attorney  general  will  do  it.  We've 
got  to  shut  this  up,  so  we're  going  to  do  it." 

We  were  told  privately,  and  once  in  a  while  publicly,  that  this 
kind  of  an  approach  was  welcomed  by  them,  and  in  most  cases  we  got 
results.   But  there  were  others  that  were  very  reluctant,  and  where 
the  sheriff's  or  police  chief's  real  allegiance  was  on  the  other 
side.   He  was  in  favor  of  keeping  things  open,  even  though  the  law 
he  was  sworn  to  uphold  was  being  violated. 

Stein:    I  remember  that  you  or  the  Chief  Justice  mentioned  a  case  in  River 
side  with  gambling  houses. 

Olney:   That's  true.   Riverside  was  one  of  the  most  difficult  counties  that 
we  had.   It  was  typical  of  that  kind  of  situation.   Over  and  over 
again,  we  gathered  evidence  of  very  large,  widespread  gambling 
operations,  especially  around  Palm  Springs.   Not  only  were  these 
big  gaming  houses,  but  they  were  also  centers  for  thieves, 


155 


Olney:    particularly  fur  thieves  and  jewel  thieves,  who  would  hang  around 
there  looking  at  the  well-to-do  people  who  would  come  there  in  the 
winter,  and  play  these  games,  and  then  the  thieves  would  tail  them 
to  their  hotels,  and  there  would  be  burglaries  and  robberies,  right 
and  left. 

It  was  not  a  healthy  situation  at  all.   But  the  ploy  that  the 
sheriff  used  on  us  repeatedly  down  there — we  had  it  in  other  places 
too — was,  "Well,  boys,  all  these  gamblers  know  my  men.   I  can't  get 
anybody  in  to  run  a  raid  because  they  know  all  my  people.   As  you've 
seen,  when  you've  sent  this  information  to  us  and  I've  sent  my  men 
out  to  close  the  place  up,  when  they  get  there  nothing  is  going  on. 
That's  because  they  know  my  men  and  they  recognize  them  when  they 
approach.  You  take  it  on.  You  have  your  boys  go  in  there  quietly 
and  make  the  arrests." 

Well,  that  all  sounds  very  well,  but  with  four  men  we  would  simply 
be  lost  in  the  swamp  if  we  ever  got  sucked  in  on  that,  so  that  we 
had  to  be  very,  very  careful  in  limiting  the  direct  action  that  we 
were  going  to  take.   The  difficulty  there  is  that  if  you  act  against 
one,  you  have  to  act  against  all,  and  we  simply  didn't  have  enough 
manpower . 

Now,  we  did  succeed  in  maneuvering  the  sheriff  on  one  occasion  in 
a  place  called  The  Dunes,  run  by  some  brothers  named  Wortheimer. 
That  was  one  of  the  biggest  and  the  oldest  down  there,  a  place  out 
in  the  desert.  We  did  succeed  in  sending  reports  to  the  sheriff  and 
getting  him  stirred  up  so  that  he  decided  that  he  was  going  to  have 
to  make  a  raid.   So  he  sent  word  out — somebody  did — to  The  Dunes 
that  they  were  going  to  be  raided,  so  the  Wortheimers  brought  in  a 
number  of  trucks  and  they  loaded  all  the  equipment  in  the  trucks  and 
took  it  out  and  hid  it  in  the  scrub  around  the  desert. 

The  difficulty  in  that,  from  their  viewpoint,  was  that  we  had 
anticipated  they  would  do  that,  and  we  had  people  out  in  the  brush 
watching  this  operation  go  on.   So  we  knew  where  the  equipment  was. 
On  that  occasion  we  did  make  our  own  raid  after  the  sheriff's  office 
had  been  there  and  said  no  gambling  had  been  going  on.   We  went  in 
there  and,  of  course,  there  was  nothing  happening  when  we  moved  in, 
but  we  had  plenty  of  evidence  from  undercover  operators  as  to  what 
had  been  going  on.  We  had  pictures  of  where  the  equipment  was  taken, 
so  we  went  out  and  we  filled  a  whole  warehouse  full  of  their  equip 
ment,  and  we  took  it  down  and  forfeited  it  all. 

Stein:   Who  was  out  in  the  brush,  these  four  investigators? 

Olney:   Well,  some  of  them  were.  We  got  others  to  help  us  on  that.  We  had 
some  one  or  two  from  the  local  district  attorney's  office.   I  don't 
remember — we  borrowed  people  when  we  could.   They  had  to  be  properly 
deputized.  We  could  do  that. 


156 


Olney:   There  was  always  a  great  question  as  to  exactly  what  the  constitu 
tional  amendment  authorized.   It  gives  the  attorney  general  certain 
responsibilities,  and  says  that  he  can  request  written  reports  from 
sheriffs  and  all  law  enforcement  agencies.  We  used  to  require 
written  reports,  I  should  say  we  did,  but  they  wouldn't  tell  us 
very  much. 

It  also  says  that  he  can  supersede  a  district  attorney  in  the 
trial  of  a  case  if  he  deems  it  in  the  public  interest  to  do  so. 
That  was  used  very,  very  rarely.   I  do  not  recall  ever  using  it  in 
a  gambling  case  for  the  very  reason  that  applies  to  the  sheriff — 
if  the  district  attorney  could  duck  his  duties  of  prosecuting 
gambling  cases  by  shoving  that  onto  the  attorney  general's  office, 
there  would  have  been  too  many  of  them  who  would  have  done  it. 

The  times  that  we  used  that  power  to  supersede  were  cases  where 
there  were  allegations  of  graft  in  the  local  government,  or  some 
other  possible  conflict  of  interest  with  the  district  attorney,  or 
even  perhaps  county  officers  in  the  investigation,  and  then  we  had 
no  problem  with  it.  We  did  it. 

But  to  this  day  it  still  remains  unclear  as  to  just  what  the 
attorney  general's  authority  is  over  law  enforcement.   Since  my 
day,  I  believe  there  have  been  some  changes  in  the  law.   I  know 
that  when  Bob  Kenny  became  attorney  general  there  was  established 
what  was  known  as  the  Department  of  Justice.  We  did  not  use  that 
name.   There  was  no  such  thing  in  our  day.  We  were  functioning 
like  a  department  of  justice,  but  the  name  was  not  used.   Now  there 
is  officially  a  Department  of  Justice  in  the  state  government. 
There  were  some  changes  in  the  law,  and  I  think  changes  in  authority, 
at  the  time  that  was  done,  but  I'm  not  familiar  with  them. 

Stein:   The  attorney  general  is  authorized  to  convene  a  grand  jury  if  a 
county  refuses  to,  or  a  county  hasn't.  Was  that  part  of  the  law 
when  you  were  there? 

Olney:   Oh,  yes. 

Stein:   Was  that  ever  used? 

Olney:   Oh,  yes.   I  believe  that  was  part  of  the  law  before  the  amendments. 
I'm  not  sure  about  that.   That's  only  a  vague  impression  I  have. 
I'm  really  not  sure  about  that.   But  I  know  that  in  our  day  we  felt 
we  could  convene  a  grand  jury,  but  I  can't  remember  a  single  instance 
when  we  did  it.  We  appeared  before  a  grand  jury,  but  I  don't  think 
we  ever  felt  we  had  to  convene  one,  although  it's  possible  we  did. 


157 


Stein:    Is  the  Division  of  Narcotics  Enforcement  new,  or  was  that  there  when 
you  were? 

Olney:   There  was  a  California  State  Bureau  of  Narcotics  that  had  no  organiza 
tional  relation  with  the  attorney  general's  office.   It  was  a  separate 
investigative  body,  and  I  don't  even  remember  who  appointed  the  head 
of  it.  But  the  only  connection  that  either  the  district  attorney  or 
the  attorney  general  had  with  it  was  simply  the  duty  of  presenting 
their  cases  and  handling  their  criminal  work,  their  legal  criminal 
work,  which  we  did. 

Stein:   I  think  that  it's  part  of  the  Department  of  Justice  now. 

Olney:    I'm  under  the  impression  that  it  is,  too.   It  seems  to  me — and  I 

think  this  is  coming  back — I  think  this  is  in  Bob  Kenny's  day,  and 
when  this  Department  of  Justice  was  created  I  think  they  put  a  lot 
of  things  in  there,  the  Bureau  of  Narcotics,  and  a  few  other  things 
like  that,  but  we  didn't  have  that,  thank  goodness. 

Stein:   Verne  Scoggins  mentioned  to  us  that  Earl  Warren  was  president  of  the 
National  Association  of  Attorneys  General,  and  in  that  office  he  did 
some  lobbying  in  Washington.   I  wondered  if  you  knew  anything  about 
that.  What  kinds  of  issues  might  he  have  lobbied  for? 

Olney:   I  do  not.   I  know  that  organization  had  a  meeting  in  San  Francisco 
at  the  time  that  Earl  was  attorney  general,  and  I  dare  say  that  he 
was  head  of  the  organization  at  the  time,  but  I  have  no  recollection 
of  their  activities.   I'm  sure  I  didn't  go  to  their  meetings.   I 
wouldn't,  because  I  was  only  on  the  staff,  and  that  organization  is 
for  attorneys  general  and  not  their  staff  members.   I  have  no  recol 
lection  of  his  doing  any  lobbying  for  them,  if  he  did. 


Office  Personnel 


Stein:   How  many  other  lawyers  did  you  have  in  the  criminal  department? 

Olney:   Well,  the  number  varied  from  time  to  time,  but  I  suppose  there  were 
half  a  dozen  who  did  most  of  their  work  for  me,  under  my  direction. 

My  work  did  not  include  all  the  criminal  work  in  the  office.   For 
example,  long  before  this  amendment,  from  the  beginning  of  the  state, 
the  attorney  general  always  handled  criminal  appeals  in  the  district 
courts  of  appeal  and  the  supreme  court.   I  never  handled  those. 
Those  were  never  in  my  area.   Once  in  a  while  there  would  be  a  case 
which  came  along  that  had  an  issue  in  it  that  was  of  big  concern  to 
us,  and  occasionally  we  would  write  the  briefs.   Once  or  twice  I 


158 


Olney:   made  the  arguments  myself;  I  did  on  the  wire  service  cases,  for 
example.   But  the  run  of  the  mill  criminal  appeal  was  handled  in 
an  organization  in  the  office  that  was  entirely  separate  from  mine. 
I  had  all  I  could  do  with  what  you  would  call  the  investigative  and 
enforcement  aspects  of  the  office.   I  was  really  trying  to  implement 
this  new  authority  that  the  attorney  general's  office  had,  and  I 
didn't  take  on  what  to  that  time  had  been  the  standard  kind  of 
criminal  work. 

Now,  there  was  a  considerable  flexibility  in  personnel  in  the 
office.   People  moved  out  of  their  slots  frequently.  When  we  made 
the  raids  on  the  gambling  ships,  we  borrowed  every  able-bodied  man 
we  could  find  among  the  lawyers  to  take  part  in  this.   Some  of  them 
had  had  no  connection  at  all  with  criminal  work  within  the  office. 
Occasionally  one  of  our  lawyers  would  be  called  on  to  handle  some 
civil  work,  file  an  injunction,  or  something  of  that  kind.   So  it's 
difficult  for  me  to  say,  especially  now,  how  big  the  staff  was. 

Stein:   Was  the  staff  increased  much  over  the  couple  of  years  that  you  were 
there? 

Olney:   No.   I  don't  think  the  number  of  positions  in  the  office  was  in 
creased  substantially,  but  assignments  were  changed. 

The  reason  that  I  think  I'm  right  on  this,  that  there  was  very 
little  increase  in  the  number  of  positions,  was  because  of  the 
difficulties  that  Warren  was  having  with  Governor  Culbert  Olson. 
But  there  would  be  times  when  people  would  be  added  to  my  division, 
or  whatever  we  called  it — section,  I  guess.   I  remember,  for  example, 
that  early  in  1941,  we  had  a  lawyer  named  Julian  Thomas  who  was 
placed  under  me.   Thomas  had  been  admitted  to  the  bar  in  the  United 
States  and  then  fought  in  World  War  I  and  after  that  had  stayed  in 
Paris  and  practiced  law  there  with  one  foot  in  France  and  the  other 
in  this  country. 

He  had  been  compelled  to  flee  just  in  advance  of  the  Nazis,  and 
came  to  this  country  destitute,  and  for  reasons  not  clear  to  me 
came  out  to  California.   Earl  gave  him  a  job  in  the  attorney 
general's  office  and  assigned  him  to  me.   Now,  there's  an  addition 
to  my  staff.  We  didn't  use  him  for  any  of  the  sort  of  thing  I'm 
talking  about,  but  used  him  for  research  on  things  that  related  to 
the  war  effort,  civil  defense,  and  the  like. 


159 


VIII   THE  ATTORNEY  GENERAL'S  OFFICE  AND  THE  GAMBLING  SHIPS 


Tony  Cornero's  Early  Career 

Stein:   I'm  ready  to  move  on  to  some  of  the  cases.   I  think  that  the  gambling 
ship  story  is  important  enough  to  get  most  of  what  we  went  over  in 
our  last  conference  on  tape.   So  could  you  begin  by  just  briefly 
describing  some  of  Tony  Cornero's  early  ventures?  You  mentioned 
when  we  spoke  before  that  he  first  appeared  in  Panama. 

Olney:   Tony  was  born  in  San  Francisco  and  was  named  Anthony  Cornero.   How 
ever,  his  father  died  when  Tony  was  quite  young,  and  sometime  there 
after  his  mother  married  a  vinyardist  from  Napa  County  named  Stralla. 
Tony  adopted  his  stepfather's  name  and  on  all  business  matters  used 
his  full  name  of  Anthony  Cornero  Stralla,  or  more  often  A.C.  Stralla. 
In  gambling  circles  and  among  rum-runners  and  bootleggers  and  to  the 
press,  however,  he  was  always  known  as  Tony  Cornero. 

What  I'm  saying  now  is  based  on  information  that  I  got  from  a 
remarkable  federal  investigator.   His  name  is  William  Dresser,  and 
he  was  attached  to  what  was  then  known  as  the  Alcohol  Tax  Unit  of 
the  Treasury  Department.   Later  it  had  another  name.  He  had  a  very 
distinguished  career  in  the  federal  service.   He  retired  a  long  time 
ago,  but  he  was  a  man  of  great  experience  and  judgment,  and  I  have 
always  accepted  what  he  told  me  as  gospel.   I'm  sure  that  he  had  it 
right  and  it  made  a  great  impression  on  me,  so  I  think  I  remember  it 
accurately. 

I  might  say  that  the  occasion  on  which  I  first  got  to  know 
Dresser,  although  I  had  many  dealings  with  him  over  the  years,  was 
after  we  had  filed  suits  against  the  gambling  ships.   One  of  the 
suits  that  we  filed  was  for  penalties  for  operating  a  public  utility 
without  a  license.   That  was  based  on  the  water  taxi  operation. 
They  were  running  water  taxis  without  a  license  from  the  Public 
Utilities  Commission,  and  there  are  civil  penalties  of  $2,500  a  day 
for  every  day  of  operation,  so  that  we  were  talking  about  $750,000 
or  more.   We  had  attached  all  the  bank  accounts  and  property  that  we 
could  think  of  that  belonged  to  Cornero  or  any  of  his  associates. 


160 


Olney:   Dresser  had  read  about  this  in  the  paper  and  realized  that  we  must 
be  trying  to  find  out  not  only  what  Tony's  assets  were  but  who  the 
people  were  who  were  associated  with  him  in  the  venture.  He  just 
walked  into  the  office  and  discussed  the  case  with  me.   The  reason 
for  that  was  that  he  himself  was  trying  to  find  Tony's  assets  and 
his  associates  and  backers,  because  he  had  something  like  a  one-  or 
two-hundred-thousand-dollar  tax  assessment  for  unpaid  alcohol  taxes 
on  an  illegal  still  that  Tony  had  been  the  front  for  down  around 
Culver  City  some  years  before.   The  tax  was  unpaid  and  uncollected. 
So  we  had  that  in  common. 

Well,  Dresser  told  me  that  the  first  information  that  the  federal 
government  had  about  Cornero  was  years  before  in  Panama.   Tony  had 
appeared  in  Panama  with  a  considerable  quantity  of  raw,  uncut  emer 
alds  which  he  had  claimed  that  he  had  prospected  out  of  the  mountains 
somewhere  in  Columbia,  where  they  do,  indeed,  have  emeralds.   They 
had  found  that  Tony  had  had  a  partner  and  the  two  of  them  had  gone 
on  a  prospecting  expedition,  but  that  Cornero  had  come  back  with  the 
emeralds  and  no  partner.   He  had  a  story  that  some  fatal  accident 
had  happened  to  his  partner.  No  one  could  prove  anything  different 
ly,  although  the  officers  down  there  didn't  think  this  was  very 
likely. 

The  next  time  that  Tony  came  to  their  notice  was  during  Prohibi 
tion,  and  they  knew  Tony  as  the  owner  and  operator  of  a  series  of 
speedboats — big,  powerful,  ocean-going  speedboats — some  around  the 
San  Francisco  area,  some  in  the  Los  Angeles  area,  that  would  go  out 
at  night  in  the  fog,  and  meet  these  rum  ships  that  were  outside  the 
twelve-mile  limit,  and  load  and  come  in  and  unload  them  on  beaches 
around  here. 

Tony  Cornero  was  engaged  in  that  sort  of  activity,  but  the  federal 
government  couldn't  get  anything  on  him,  until  one  day  a  ship  put  in 
at  New  Orleans.   It  was  on  its  way  from  somewhere  in  Scandinavia,  and 
destined  for  either  Tahiti  or  Samoa,  somewhere  down  in  the  South 
Seas,  and  they  put  in  to  New  Orleans  on  the  way  to  the  Canal  to  get 
supplies  and  whatnot. 

They  had  a  load  of  liquor  on  board,  properly  manifested,  for 
their  cargo.   But  the  captain  of  that  vessel,  while  the  ship  was 
there  getting  itself  ready  to  go  on,  went  into  the  federal  customs 
service  there  and  told  them  that  he  had  taken  on  this  voyage  in 
good  faith,  but  had  become  convinced  that  this  was  an  illegal  rum- 
running  operation,  and  that  when  he  had  sailed  he'd  been  told  that 
the  South  Seas  was  their  destination,  but  now  he  had  received  orders 
to  divert  the  ship's  course  to  the  north  after  he  got  through  the 
Canal.   They  were  to  meet  some  motorboats  at  such-and-such  an  inter 
section  of  latitude  and  longitude,  where  most  of  the  cargo  would  be 
taken  off,  and  then  they  would  proceed  on  to  the  South  Seas.   He  said 
he  didn't  want  any  part  of  that  and  he  thought  he'd  better  report  it. 


161 


Olney:   The  customs  people  thanked  him,  but  told  him  to  go  right  along  as 
planned.   They'd  got  the  details  of  the  place  where  they  [the  rum 
runners]  were  supposed  to  meet.   Of  course,  what  they  wanted  to  do 
was  make  arrests  of  the  people  in  the  motorboats. 

The  voyage  proceeded  according  to  schedule  and  they  went  to  the 
place  which  was  somewhere  off  the  California  coast  and  got  there  on 
the  proper  night.   It  was  foggy  as  could  be,  but  the  motorboats 
arrived  and  they  did  unload  a  great  part  of  the  cargo  into  the  boats 
when  the  Coast  Guard  put  in  an  appearance.  The  motorboats  then 
promptly  cast  off  with  what  they  had  and  took  off  with  a  roar  and 
disappeared  in  the  fog  and  they  were  never  caught. 

Of  course,  this  started  a  thorough  federal  investigation.   They 
went  to  Scandinavia  and  found  that  the  man  who  had  ordered  the  cargo 
in  Scandinavia  was  none  other  than  Cornero.   He'd  been  over  there 
himself  and  ordered  this  stuff.   So  they  realized  that  he  was  a  big 
operator,  that  he  had  big  financing  behind  him  to  enable  him  to  do 
all  this. 

Then  some  years  later  they  ran  across  a  large  still  outside  of 
Culver  City  where  there  had  been  an  oil  well  with  some  tanks — sort 
of  a  half  refinery  about  it.   It  had  been  refurbished  and  the  tanks 
were  all  painted  with  aluminum  paint  and  looked  nice  and  neat  and 
the  well  pump  would  go  up  and  down.   [laughter]   Nothing  but  a  front 
for  a  great  big  still. 

Stein:   They  were  pumping  something,  but  it  wasn't  oil.   [laughter] 

Olney:   Yes.   The  trucks  going  in  and  out  were  carrying  black  strap  molasses 
one  way  and  alcohol  the  other,  and  this  is  where  this  tax  lien  came 
in.   It  was  for  the  unpaid  taxes.   Some  way  or  other  they  connected 
Cornero  with  ownership  of  that.   But  they  never  could  find  any 
property  that  Cornero  had  in  his  own  name  from  which  they  could 
realize  anything. 


Tracking  Cornero 's  Backers 


Olney:   Do  you  want  me  to  go  on  with  what  Dresser  told  me  about  Cornero? 

He  said  that  they  had  made  the  same  effort  that  we  had  to  try  to 
find  out  who  the  people  were  who  were  putting  up  the  money  that  Tony 
was  using.   They  knew  that  he  just  didn't  have  money  like  that.   And 
he  [Dresser]  told  me  that  there  had  been  a  lawsuit  during  the  Pro 
hibition  period,  when  Tony  was  running  schooners  and  motorboats, 
that  involved  one  of  the  schooners  that  they  knew  was  involved  with 


162 


Olney:    Tony's  business — Tony's  trade.   They  said  the  record  of  the  case  was 
in  the  United  States  District  Court  in  Los  Angeles,  and  the  suit  was 
between  the  owners  of  the  cargo  and  the  owners  of  the  vessel.   It  was 
some  kind  of  a  hassle  they'd  gotten  into.   Dresser  said,  "You  can 
read  the  papers  in  the  lawsuit  and  there  isn't  a  word  in  them  that 
would  indicate  there's  anything  illegal  about  this  ship  or  the  cargo." 
Of  course,  nobody  could  afford  to  put  that  in,  and  there  wasn't  any 
need  for  it  to  settle  their  argument.   The  dispute  hadn't  related  to 
the  character  of  the  cargo. 

I  can't  remember  whether  Dresser  said  it  was  the  owners  of  the 
cargo  or  the  owners  of  the  ship,  but  he  was  satisfied  that  Tony  was 
financially  interested  in  one  side  of  that  case  and  that  the  people 
who  appeared  there  as  owners — either  of  the  cargo  or  the  ship — were 
Tony's  backers.   But  Dresser  said  that  he  didn't  know  who  these 
people  were  and  was  never  able  to  get  any  line  on  them  or  even 
connect  them  directly  with  Tony. 

I  thought  that  we  might  get  some  additional  information  and  had 
one  of  our  investigators  go  down  and  look  up  this  lawsuit  and  come 
back  with  copies  of  the  complaint  and  of  the  answer,  so  that  we  had 
everybody's  name  who  was  in  it.  We  looked  these  names  over  and  they 
didn't  mean  anything  to  us.  Most  of  them  were  the  names  of  individ 
uals  and  we  looked  them  up  in  directories  and  things  of  that  kind 
and  we  couldn't  find  them  anywhere. 

There  were,  however,  one  or  two  corporations.   There  was  one  that 
I  remember  distinctly  called  Burns-Philip,  which  was  a  corporation 
with  a  hyphenated  name,  and  we  did  find  that  in  the  Los  Angeles 
directory,  which  was  a  city  directory,  listed  as  importers.   I  also 
found  it  listed  in  San  Francisco  as  importers,  but  the  name  was 
wholly  unfamiliar  to  me.   They  had  no  big  office  or  anything  of  that 
kind,  and  I  thought  it  was  some  fly-by-night  little  local  importer 
who  had  gotten  involved  in  this  thing.   It  wasn't  until  years  later 
when  I  was  in  the  South  Seas  myself  that  I  learned  that  Burns-Philip 
was  the  huge  Australian  trading  company  that  operated  everywhere  in 
the  South  Pacific. 

Shall  I  go  into  the  rest  of  this? 
Stein:   No,  I  think  that  story  we  have  on  the  other  tape. 

You  did  mention  something  when  we  talked  the  last  time  in  connec 
tion  with  you  and  William  Dresser  both  trying  to  find  out  who  these 
backers  were,  that  at  one  point  Tony  bought  some  ships  in  San  Fran 
cisco  Bay  and  that  the  attorney  general's  office  got  wind  of  it  and 
you  were  able  to  tip  off  Dresser  so  that  he  could — 


163 


Olney:   That's  right.   That  happened  along  in  November  and  December  of  1939. 
Tony  finally  gave  up  and  surrendered  on  the  gambling  ship  litigation 
along  in  November,  1939.   Even  before  that,  a  week  or  two  before  that, 
he  was  reported  in  the  paper  as  negotiating  deals  for  the  purchase  of 
ships  that  were  lying  out  here  in  San  Francisco  Bay.   I  remember  that 
they  included  some  of  the  Admiral  Line  ships,  which  were  big  ships 
for  the  Pacific  coast.  Because  of  the  Depression  they  were  just  at 
anchor  out  there.   They  would  have  been  in  mothballs  if  they'd  had 
any  mothballs.   They  didn't  have  them  then. 

Cornero  had  bought  these  ships — was  negotiating  their  purchase,  I 
should  say — for  a  very  low  figure.   That  was  reported  in  the  paper. 
We  were  watching  him  and  following  him  closely  enough.   I  believe  it 
was  because  of  our  attachments  that  we  had  on  the  banks  that  we  got 
wind  of  the  fact  that  there  was  going  to  be  an  exchange  on  those 
ships  at  the  office  of  some  particular  bank  on  a  given  day,  that  the 
cash  would  be  paid  in  and  the  title  to  the  ships  would  be  trans 
ferred  into  an  escrow  right  at  that  time. 

So  we  advised  Dresser  about  this,  and  he  took  advantage  of  it.   I 
guess  he  got  some  information  out  of  the  banker — I  don't  know  what 
exactly,  the  time  of  day,  and  whatnot — but  it  worked.  He  came  in 
there  with  his  tax  lien  before  the  ships  were  transferred  and  when 
the  cash  was  there,  and  he  got  the  cash  and  the  government  got  paid. 

But  I  might  say,  it  did  not  stop  the  purchase,  which  is  another 
indication  of  the  amount  of  cash  that  Tony  had  behind  him,  because 
they  went  ahead  with  this  purchase  anyway.   It  turned  out  to  be  very, 
very  profitable,  because  the  war  had  started  in  Europe  in  1939  in 
August.   This  was  along  in  November,  and  it  was  already  apparent  that 
the  war  was  going  to  go  on  for  some  time.   Tony  was  smart  enough  to 
realize  that  war  always  meant  a  terrific  demand  for  ships,  and  any 
old  ship,  any  old  bottom  you  could  get,  was  going  to  appreciate  in 
value  immensely  and  he  bought  up  a  lot  of  them.   He  made  a  lot  of 
money  that  way. 

Meanwhile,  the  ordinary  shipping  people  around  here  were  just 
twiddling  their  thumbs.   [laughter] 


Investigating  the  Ships 


Stein:  You  mentioned  some  things  about  the  gambling  ships  themselves  that 
I  thought  were  very  interesting.  You  mentioned  that  Oscar  Jahnsen 
had  made  a  tour  of  the  ships  and  had  written  a  very  complete  report. 


164 


Olney:   Earl  Warren  was  determined  to  put  those  ships  out  of  business,  but 

he  was  also  determined  not  to  get  into  any  more  trouble  over  it  than 
was  necessary.   These  were  pretty  tough  fellows,  and  if  we  were  to 
make  a  sudden  raid  without  warning,  someone  could  well  have  gotten 
killed;  at  least  there  could  have  been  an  awful  fight.   And  that 
would  be  justified,  you  see,  if  somebody  came  without  warning,  be 
cause  these  ships  used  to  hijack  each  other.   They  had  to  keep 
guards  on  them  all  the  time.   They  would  rob  each  other  whenever 
they  got  the  chance. 

We  thought  the  best  way  to  avoid  trouble  was  not  to  take  them  by 
surprise,  but  to  let  them  know  we  were  coming,  because  that  would 
put  them  in  an  indefensible  position  if  they  resorted  to  violence. 
It  would  put  them  in  a  position  of  knowingly  resisting  the  law 
officers,  which  they  couldn't  safely  do.   In  addition,  Warren  always 
thought  that  with  an  operation  of  that  kind,  particularly  one  that 
had  gone  on  for  years,  the  fair  thing  to  do  was  to  give  the  man  a 
chance  to  get  out  gracefully.   He  would  save  an  awful  lot  of  time 
and  trouble  and  save  an  awful  lot  of  money  for  the  public  if  he  gave 
them  notice  and  they  folded  up. 

He  decided  to  give  them  a  formal  notice  to  cease  and  desist.   But 
before  doing  that  he  wanted  to  get  the  full  and  complete  information 
on  just  exactly  what  this  operation  was.  We  had  undercover  operators 
whom  we  thought  were  reliable,  who  had  proved  to  be  in  the  past.  We 
believed  them,  and  we  thought  it  would  be  a  good  idea  if  besides  that 
we  had  one  of  our  investigators  give  a  last  minute  full  inspection  of 
the  ship.   So  Oscar  [Jahnsen]  decided  he'd  do  it  himself. 

I  think  he  had  someone  with  him;  anyway,  he  made  no  attempt  to 
conceal  himself  or  reveal  himself  either.   He  just  went  on  board  on 
one  of  the  taxis.   But  because  of  this  hijacking  business,  all  the 
ships  had  somebody  right  there  on  the  platform  watching  everybody 
who  came  on.  When  Oscar  went  on  board,  he  found  Mike  Connally 
acting  as  Tony's  spotter.   Mike  had  been  around  the  legislature  in 
Sacramento  for  years  and  then  had  become  chief  investigator  for  the 
liquor  administration  of  the  State  Board  of  Equalization.   He  had 
been  convicted  of  bribery  in  Alameda  County  and  Oscar  had  worked  up 
the  case. 

Mike  spotted  Oscar  Immediately,  as  soon  as  he  came  up  the  stairs. 
Oscar  hadn't  been  on  that  ship  five  minutes  when  he  was  tapped  on 
the  shoulder  by  a  man  who  said,  "Welcome  aboard,  Mr.  Jahnsen.   I'm 
Tony  Cornero.   Is  there  anything  I  can  do  for  you?"  And  Oscar  said, 
"Well,  I  recognize  you,  Mr.  Cornero.   There  is.   I've  come  out  to 
take  a  look  at  your  operation." 


165 


Olney:    "Well,"  Tony  said,  "you're  welcome  to  see  anything  you  want  to  see. 
What  we're  doing  out  here  is  entirely  legal.  We're  inside  the  law 
because  we  are  outside  the  state  boundary." 

Oscar  said,  "Well,  I  know  you  are  in  your  view,  but  that's  not 
accepted  everywhere,  so  I  guess  it  isn't  up  to  you  and  me  to  decide, 
but  I  would  like  to  see  what  the  operation  is."  Tony  took  him  all 
over  the  ship,  everything.   Tony  showed  him  not  only  all  the  games 
and  how  they  were  worked  and  how  they  handled  the  cash  and  the  food, 
but  also  how  the  anchorage  worked,  and  what  power  they  had,  and  how 
they  could  shift  the  position  of  the  ship  around  depending  on  where 
the  wind  and  tides  came  from — everything.   Oscar  immediately  came 
back  and  wrote  a  report  which  I  think  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
investigator's  reports  I  have  ever  read.   It  just  went  on  for  pages 
with  detail  after  detail  after  detail.   It's  all  there.   I  kind  of 
wish  I  had  a  copy  of  it. 


Anchorage  and  Telephone  Service 


Stein:    Speaking  of  the  anchorage,  you  mentioned  that  the  anchoring  system 
was  quite  a  feat  in  itself  because  the  ships  were  so  far  out. 

Olney:   Well,  I'm  no  seaman,  and  I'm  only  told  this.   That's  an  open  coast, 
and  in  the  winter  it's  subjected  to  very  heavy  storms,  lots  of 
storms,  and  there  have  been  many  sinkings  there.   In  fact,  when  the 
Texas ,  another  one  of  the  ships  anchored  near  the  Rex,  tried  to  go 
through  the  winter  of  1940,  she  sank  in  the  storm.  The  other  ships 
used  to  come  in  during  the  winter  and  tie  up. 

But  Cornero  kept  his  ship  out  there  all  during  the  winter  with 
this  remarkable  system  of  anchoring.   He  had  four  anchors  out  there, 
but  they  were  on  cables,  so  that  he  could  haul  the  thing  around.   He 
could  maneuver  the  position  of  the  ship  and  the  waves  never  hit  it 
broadside.   It  was  almost  as  if  he  was  sailing  with  the  thing,  al 
though  he  didn't  really  have  power  enough  to  make  the  ship  move,  but 
he  could  control  the  ship's  position. 

It  worked  very  well.  They  told  me  that  there  were  groups  of  naval 
officers  who  came  out  there  to  inspect  the  set-up  to  see  how  this  was 
done,  because  it  was  supposed  to  be  really  quite  a  feat. 

Cornero  was  a  very  smart,  able,  practical  man.   He  wasn't  edu 
cated.   He  got  all  his  know-how  in  a  practical  way.   As  a  rum- rummer 
with  these  motorboats,  he  had  gotten  to  know  the  coast  of  California 
like  the  back  of  his  hand.   There  wasn't  a  harbor  or  a  cove  or  a 


166 


Olney:   rock  around  there  that  he  didn't  know,  and  he'd  had  tremendous 
experience  with  the  tides  and  the  weather  and  even  the  wind  and 
this  kind  of  thing.   And  he  was  very  ingenious,  and  I'd  say  gutsy. 
He  would  tackle  things  like  this  where  other  people  would  be  afraid 
of  the  risk.   He  tackled  it  and  did  it. 

Stein:   Didn't  he  do  something  like  that  in  getting  the  racing  information 
to  his  boat? 

Olney:   Yes,  he  certainly  did.   He  puzzled  us  for  a  long  time  because  he 
was  operating  a  bookmaking  establishment  on  the  Rex  which  was  the 
equal  of  the  bookie  joints  that  were  operating  on  shore.  We  had  a 
lot  of  them  operating  at  that  time.   That  was  before  we  had  tried 
to  crack  down  on  the  racing  wire  service.  For  their  operations 
they  had  to  have  this  almost  instantaneous  report  of  the  operations — 
the  results  from  the  various  race  tracks.   They'd  put  the  race 
results  on  a  great  blackboard,  like  a  stock  exchange  board. 

Well,  we  found  that  Tony's  service  was  just  as  fast  and  just  as 
complete  and  adequate  as  anybody  was  getting  on  shore,  but  he  was 
over  three  miles  out  at  sea.  We  thought  at  first  he  must  be  doing 
this  by  radio,  so  we  contacted  the  FCC,  because  that  would  be 
illegal,  would  be  inviolation  of  the  Federal  Communications  Act. 
They  thought  he  must  be  doing  it  too,  but  they  made  a  thorough 
check,  and  it  wasn't  being  done  by  radio. 

Well,  then  we  found  that  he  did  have  a  leased  telephone  line 
from  the  wire  service  headquarters  in  Los  Angeles  out  to  the  end 
of  the  Santa  Monica  pier,  and  they  had  a  little  room  out  there. 
It  was  hardly  bigger  than  a  telephone  booth,  but  had  a  man  in  it, 
a  little  room  out  there.   Then  we  knew  it  must  go  from  there  some 
way  to  the  ship.   In  due  course  we  found  there  had  been  a  cable 
run  from  that  room  out  to  the  ship.   That  stuff  came  in  on  the 
speaker  in  the  little  room,  and  the  man  on  duty  would  put  a  mike 
up  against  the  speaker,  and  the  race  track  information  went  through 
the  cable  and  blasted  out  on  board  the  ship. 

The  curious  thing  about  this  was  that  this  was  all  done  without 
a  permit.   You  needed  a  permit  from  the  War  Department  to  run  a 
cable  from  shore  to  a  ship  three  miles  or  more  out  at  sea.  Tony 
had  applied  to  the  War  Department  in  Washington  over  and  over  again. 
He  had  lawyers  working  on  it,  and  whatnot,  but  no  success.   They 
wouldn't  entertain  this  idea,  not  because  they  cared  anything  about 
what  he  was  going  to  do  with  the  cable,  but  because  they  said  it 
was  impossible  to  make  such  a  cable  work.   You  can't  run  a  tele 
phone  cable  of  the  kind  he  proposed  to  use  that  distance  under  the 
ocean  and  bring  it  on  board  a  ship  and  have  it  work.   The  snapper 
on  this  was  that  it  was  working  all  the  time!   [laughter] 


167 


Stein:   That's  really  incredible. 

Had  there  already  been  legal  efforts,  even  before  Warren  was 
attorney  general,  to  get  rid  of  the  gambling  ships? 

Olney:   Yes,  there  had  been,  and  I  think  at  the  time  that  we  had  our  discus- 
tions  out  there  at  the  Faculty  Club*,  that  I  had  not  yet  checked 
this  in  the  newspaper  files.  Had  I? 

Stein:   No. 

Olney:   Well,  it's  all  in  there,  exactly  what  had  happened. 


A  Brief  History  of  the  Gambling  Ships 
[Interview  6:  January  27,  1972] 

Olney:   The  gambling  ships  off  the  California  coast  had  a  long  history.   I 
believe  the  first  one  was  the  Joanna  Smith  and  she  operated  in  the 
1920s.   I'm  not  sure  where  she  operated  first.   I  think  that  it  was 
off  of  Santa  Barbara.   Percy  Heckendorf ,  later  District  Attorney  of 
Santa  Barbara  County,  told  me  this. 

Then  that  proved  to  be  impractical.   The  channel  was  altogether 
too  rough.   They  couldn't  anchor  her  successfully,  and  then  there 
was  interference  with  the  water  taxis  by  the  authorities  on  the 
shore,  so  she  was  later  moved.   I  believe  she  must  have  operated 
three  or  four  different  seasons. 

I  believe  she  finally  was  anchored  in  San  Pedro  Bay  off  Long 
Beach.   By  that  time  there  were  competitors  in  the  field.   Other 
ships — gambling  ships — were  operating,  and  there  was  a  great  deal 
of  hostility  between  the  operators  of  the  various  ships.   The 
professional  help,  the  gamblers,  from  one  ship  on  one  occasion  went 
on  board  another  and  proceeded  to  play  the  games  and  run  up  heavy 
winnings.  When  the  operators  of  that  ship  found  out  what  was  going 
on,  why,  there  was  a  terrific  fight  on  board. 


*Refers  to  a  luncheon  at  the  University  of  California  Men's  Faculty 
Club,  at  which  Earl  Warren,  Warren  Olney,  and  several  members  of 
the  staff  of  the  Regional  Oral  History  Office  were  present.   Tran 
scripts  of  the  conversation  will  be  deposited  in  The  Bancroft 
Library. 


168 


Olney:   On  another  occasion  a  group  of  men  with  guns  came  on  board  one  of 

the  ships  and  held  it  up  and  robbed  it  of  the  whole  bank  roll.   The 
owners  of  that  ship  came  to  the  conclusion  that  this  job  had  been 
done  or  had  been  instigated  by  one  of  their  competitors.   So  a  week 
or  so  later  they  went  on  board  the  ship  they  thought  was  responsible 
for  the  hijacking,  got  everybody  off,  and  set  fire  to  it.   It  burned 
all  night  off  of  Long  Beach  down  to  the  water  line.  My  recollection 
is  that  that  was  the  Joanna  Smith.   That's  how  she  ended  up. 

These  activities  were  seasonal,  of  course,  because  of  the  weather 
(you  can't  operate  those  ships  successfully  in  stormy  and  rough 
weather) ;  but  during  the  seasons  they  had  operated  in  San  Pedro  Bay, 
Santa  Monica  Bay,  and  once,  at  least,  in  Santa  Barbara,  over  a 
period  of  years.   They  were  a  terrific  nuisance.   There  was  always 
violence  going  on.   There  was  one  occasion  when  a  well-to-do  odds- 
maker,  Zeke  Caress,  was  kidnaped,  and  he  was  held  for  ransom  out  on 
one  of  those  ships.   Eventually  he  was  ransomed. 

But  besides  these  fights,  ordinary  customers  were  not  infrequently 
beaten  up  if  they  made  heavy  winnings,  and  more  often  than  not, 
right  on  board  the  ships.   Complaints  were  made  to  the  local  police 
and  the  sheriff's  office,  but  I  can't  recall  their  ever  taking  any 
action  on  any  of  these  complaints. 

The  long  history  of  inaction  (among  other  things)  led  us  to  a 
well-founded  suspicion  that  some  of  the  key  law  enforcement  officials 
on  the  shore  probably  had  financial  interests  in  these  ships.   They 
could  justify  this  in  their  own  eyes,  we  thought,  as  not  being 
bribery  or  a  violation  of  the  law  if  the  ships  were  outside  the 
limits  of  the  state,  because  then  the  activities  that  they  were 
engaged  in  were  not  illegal.   They  would  claim  that  as  far  as  the 
state  law  was  concerned,  they  were  not  in  violation  of  any  statutes 
that  they  were  under  duty  to  enforce.   It  would  be  just  as  though 
they  had  an  interest  in  a  gambling  house  in  Arizona  or  Nevada,  or 
some  place  like  that. 

Along  in  the  late  '30s,  for  two  or  three  years,  the  gambling 
ship  operators  had  a  regular  little  song  and  dance  they  put  on  with 
the  local  law  enforcement  agencies.   It  would  start  off  in  the 
spring,  as  soon  as  the  weather  got  good  enough  to  run  the  taxis 
back  and  forth.   The  ships  would  open  and  they'd  advertise  and 
they'd  go  as  long  as  they  could.   Pretty  soon  public  pressure  would 
build  up  in  the  district  attorney's  and  the  sheriff's  offices.   The 
county  officials  would  make  noises  and  threaten  to  close  the  ships 
down,  and  finally  they'd  go  out  and  they'd  make  a  raid,  and  some 
body  would  get  arrested.   The  people  arrested  would  be  out  on  bail, 
and  the  case  would  be  in  the  court.   They  would  proceed  in  due 
course  to  have  a  preliminary  hearing,  and  meanwhile  the  ships  were 
operating  all  the  time. 


169 


Olney:   Sometimes  they  would  get  around  to  a  trial.  They  didn't  always; 
sometimes  the  delaying  tactics  were  sufficient  to  keep  it  from 
getting  to  trial,  but  if  they  did  get  to  trial,  if  there  wasn't  an 
acquittal,  there  would  always  be  an  appeal.   By  then,  so  much  time 
would  have  passed  that  it  would  be  the  end  of  the  season;  it  would 
be  along  in  September  or  October  when  the  first  storms  could  be 
expected.   So  with  the  end  of  the  season,  the  ships  would  close 
down,  and  they'd  tow  them  back  in,  and  they  wouldn't  be  out  there 
operating  any  more.   The  ship  operators  would  promise  not  to  do  it 
again,  so  legal  proceedings  would  be  dismissed  on  the  ground  the 
case  was  moot.   The  next  year  they  would  do  the  same  thing,  only 
under  different  front  names. 

Stein:   Now,  with  these  legal  proceedings,  were  they  brought  on  the  theory 
that  the  ships  were  within  the  three-mile  limit  and  therefore  il 
legal? 

Olney:   Yes,  and  most  of  them  were  based  on  arrests.   There  were  no  proceed 
ings  brought  by  any  county  officials  on  the  notion  that  the  ships 
were  outside  the  three-mile  limit. 

At  any  rate,  it  was  a  circumstance  that  bothered  us,  that  no 
action  had  been  taken  about  the  violence.   There  were  killings 
involved,  too.   The  Long  Beach  police  had  repeatedly  picked  out  of 
the  Bay  dead  bodies  floating  around  off  shore.  When  they  had  holes 
shot  in  the  back  of  their  heads,  it  didn't  look  much  like  suicide. 
And  then  there  had  been  an  occasion  when  a  killing  had  taken  place 
on  one  of  the  ships  that  got  into  the  federal  court.   It  was  the 
case  of  United  States  vs.  Carrillo,  decided  in  1935.   I  have  for 
gotten  exactly  how  that  case  goes. 

I  believe  that  that  was  a  murder  case  in  which  the  charge  was 
brought  originally  in  the  state  court  and  then  Carrillo  applied 
for  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  to  the  United  States  District  Court  on 
the  theory  that  the  ship  was  on  the  high  seas,  and  therefore  the 
state  could  have  no  jurisdiction  to  try  him  for  homicide.   He  claimed 
that  he  should  have  been  tried  in  the  federal  court.   I  may  be  wrong 
about  the  circumstances  under  which  this  arose,  but  I  do  recall  that 
the  federal  court  held  that  the  location  of  this  ship,  although  more 
than  three  miles  from  shore,  was  inside  a  bay  and  therefore  within 
the  territorial  limits  of  California.   It  was  one  of  the  cases  that 
we  later  used  as  authority  for  our  position. 


170 


The  Cornero-Adams  Arrest  and  the  Adams  Appeal 

Olney:   Now,  the  litigation  which  finally  led  to  Earl  Warren's  gambling  ship 
raids  began  before  he  was  attorney  general.   The  sequence  goes  like 
this:   On  May  5th,  1938,  the  S.S.  Rex  was  opened  by  Tony  Cornero  to 
capacity  crowds.   It  was  located  off  Santa  Monica,  and  it  was  sup 
plied  with  water  taxis  from  the  Santa  Monica  municipal  pier. 

On  May  13,  the  Rex  was  raided  by  officers  from  the  district 
attorney's  office,  the  sheriff's  office,  and  the  Santa  Monica  Police 
Department.   The  district  attorney  was  Huron  Fitts  and  the  sheriff 
was  Eugene  Biscailuz.   On  that  occasion,  fifty-one  persons,  including 
Cornero,  were  arrested. 

On  June  14,  1938,  because  the  Santa  Monica  city  authorities  had 
halted  the  water  taxi  operations  from  the  municipal  pier,  the  Rex 
was  moved  to  a  point  about  four  miles  off  Redondo  Beach.   That's 
still  in  Santa  Monica  Bay,  but  it's  a  different  location  in  the  Bay 
and  the  water  taxis  could  operate  from  the  city  of  Redondo  Beach. 

On  July  19,  1938,  three  of  the  operators  of  the  Rex,  including 
Cornero  and  Adams,  were  indicted  by  the  Los  Angeles  County  grand 
jury  on  bookmaking  charges,  a  felony.   Adams  was  the  gambler  who 
was  in  immediate  charge  of  the  bookmaking  operation  on  board  the 
Rex.   The  evidence  of  gambling  was  based  entirely  on  the  bookmaking 
operation.   They  didn't  put  into  evidence  anything  about  slot 
machines  or  roulette  wheels  or  the  like.   On  July  20th,  that  year, 
Cornero  and  Adams  were  arrested. 

On  September  7th,  1938,  the  Rex,  which  had  been  operating  all 
this  time,  was  again  raided  while  off  Redondo  Beach  by  the  district 
attorney's  and  the  sheriff's  offices.   On  this  occasion,  Cornero 
and  nine  others  were  arrested  on  misdemeanor  charges.   A  quantity 
of  gambling  equipment  was  taken  ashore  as  evidence,  and  after  this 
raid  the  Rex  was  moved  again,  this  time  beyond  the  twelve-mile 
limit,  and  preparations  were  made  to  re-open. 

But  on  September  23rd,  1938,  Cornero  and  his  employees  were  freed 
of  the  misdemeanor  charges  that  had  resulted  from  the  raid  of  Sep 
tember  7th.   They  were  freed  by  Judge  C.A.  Bridge,  who  concluded 
that  the  waters  between  Point  Vincente  and  Point  Dume  were  open 
seas,  and  within  that  area  the  state  boundary  followed  three  miles 
from  the  shore. 

Then,  on  September  26th,  1938,  Cornero  and  Adams  were  put  on 
trial  on  felony  bookmaking  charges  that  were  based  on  the  indictment 
that  had  been  returned  on  July  19th.   In  October,  Adams  was  convicted 
on  this  charge  by  a  jury,  but  the  jury  disagreed  as  to  Cornero,  and 
the  case  against  him  was  dropped. 


171 


Olney:   Earl  Warren  took  office  as  attorney  general  in  January,  1939.   Adams 
took  an  appeal  to  the  district  court  of  appeal  and  on  March  20th, 
1939,  Adams'  conviction  was  reversed  by  the  district  court  of  appeal 
on  the  ground  that  the  Rex  was  on  the  high  seas  at  the  time  of  the 
alleged  offense  of  May  13th,  1938,  and  was  not  within  the  territorial 
limits  and  jurisdiction  of  the  state  of  California. 

The  first  thing  Earl  Warren  had  to  decide  when  he  became  attorney 
general  was  what  to  do  about  that  decision.   Should  he  accept  it 
from  the  district  court  of  appeal,  or  should  he  appeal  it  to  the 
[California]  Supreme  Court?  After  consulting  with  Bayard  Rhone,  a 
deputy  attorney  general  in  U.S.  Webb's  office,  and  looking  at  his 
brief  with  the  rest  of  us,  he  decided  that  we  should  appeal  to  the 
supreme  court.  We  had  nothing  to  lose  by  taking  the  appeal,  anyway. 

We  had  to  devise  some  way,  without  waiting  for  the  supreme  court, 
of  bringing  that  operation  to  a  halt,  because  they  were  piling  in  so 
much  money.   In  those  days  we  weren't  using  paper  money  very  much  in 
California.  The  gamblers  used  little  except  coin,  those  big  silver 
dollars.   They  were  quite  heavy.   They  were  taking  in  so  many  silver 
dollars  every  day  that  the  bank  in  Santa  Monica  that  handled  Tony's 
account  told  them  that  they  would  close  out  the  account  unless  he 
did  something  about  meeting  the  expense  of  handling  the  weight.   And 
so  he  had  to  buy  a  truck  for  the  bank  to  haul  all  the  cash. 

Well,  naturally,  the  ship  operators  were  not  interested  in  the 
fine  points  of  the  law  if  they  could  operate  in  that  fashion,  and  we 
had  to  stop  them.   That  was  our  practical  problem. 

On  March  21st,  1939,  Buron  Fitts,  the  district  attorney,  ordered 
a  petition  for  hearing  of  Adams'  case  to  be  filed  in  the  supreme 
court,  according  to  the  newspaper  clippings,  "...with  the  cooperation 
of  Earl  Warren,  attorney  general,  assured  in  the  matter."  Thomas 
O'Brien,  the  deputy  district  attorney  who  had  prosecuted  Harold  Adams 
on  the  bookmaking  charge,  said  he  had  already  prepared  the  necessary 
papers  to  petition  the  supreme  court  for  a  review  of  the  case.  The 
newspaper  says,  "The  petition  will  be  filed  in  the  name  of  the 
attorney  general  of  this  state  and  of  the  district  attorney." 

There  is  what  at  first  appears  to  be  a  discrepancy  in  the  dates 
in  the  newspaper  clippings  with  respect  to  the  arrests  on  which  the 
Adams  case  is  based.   May  6th  is  mentioned  as  the  date  of  the  offense 
of  which  Adams  was  convicted,  but  the  raid  and  the  arrest  were  May 
13th.   The  reason  for  this  is  the  criminal  charge  was  based  on 
evidence  which  was  secured  by  operators  on  May  6th,  and  the  arrests 
followed  later. 

On  April  llth,  1939,  a  petition  for  hearing  of  the  Adams  case 
in  the  supreme  court  was  filed  by  Bayard  Rhone,  deputy  attorney 
general.   The  petition  was  prepared  in  cooperation  with  the  district 


172 


Olney:   attorney's  office,  and  Thomas  O'Brien  and  Jerry  Sullivan,  who  were 

deputy  district  attorneys.  On  April  18th,  the  supreme  court  granted 
the  state  a  hearing  on  the  Adams  case,  and  the  matter  was  put  on  the 
court's  June  calendar. 

On  June  30th,  1939,  the  Los  Angeles  Times  carried  an  item  from 
which  this  is  a  quote:   "District  Attorney  Fitts,  who  twice  led 
night  raids  on  the  gambling  ship  Rex  anchored  off  Santa  Monica  and 
Redondo,  yesterday  said  that  a  pending  ruling  by  the  supreme  court 
on  gambling  boat  operations  will  determine  his  policy  toward  their 
operations.   'If  the  supreme  court  upholds  the  district  court  ruling 
saying  the  courts  do  not  have  the  power  to  fix  the  three-mile  limit, 
this  office  will  be  powerless  to  act,1  Fitts  stated." 


Legal  Theories 

Olney:   Now,  I  must  inject  a  personal  note  here.   I  joined  the  staff  of  the 
attorney  general's  office  under  Earl  Warren  about  the  middle  of  May, 
1939.  When  I  appeared  there  for  duty,  the  first  assignment  that  was 
given  to  me  was  to  work  on  these  gambling  ship  cases.   A  lot  of  work 
had  been  done  already.   The  Adams  case,  the  petition  for  hearing  in 
the  supreme  court,  had  been  prepared;  the  hearing  had  been  granted; 
the  briefs  were  being  written  by  Bayard  Rhone  in  the  office  in  Los 
Angeles. 

There  were  two  points  raised  on  that  appeal.   The  first  one  was 
that  the  ship  was  located  in  Santa  Monica  Bay,  which  was  a  true  bay 
under  international  law,  and  that  meant  that  the  limits  of  the  state 
did  not  follow  three  miles  from  the  shore,  but  were  a  straight  line 
drawn  three  miles  at  sea  from  Point  Vincente  to  Point  Dume,  all  the 
area  on  the  east  of  that  line  being  within  the  state.   That  was  the 
first  point. 

The  other  point  involved  the  interpretation  of  the  Treaty  of 
Guadalupe-Hidalgo ,  which  set  the  international  boundary  between  the 
United  States  and  Mexico,  and  determined  not  only  the  land  boundaries 
of  the  United  States,  but  the  sea  boundaries  along  the  California 
coast  as  well.   The  treaty  describes  a  land  line  running  from  the 
east  and  hitting  the  Pacific  coast  at  a  place  described  in  the  treaty 
as  one  league  south  of  the  southern  tip  of  San  Diego  Bay,  and  "thence 
one  marine  league  into  the  sea,  including  the  islands."  The  state 
constitution  uses  the  same  language.   The  point  that  was  argued  in 
the  brief  was  that  that  language  meant  that  the  boundary — the  sea 
boundary — ran  from  this  point  near  the  end  of  San  Diego  Bay  in  a 
series  of  straight  lines  extending  outside  the  outermost  of  the 
Channel  Islands,  so  that  all  the  Channel  Islands  and  all  the  water 
in  between  were  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States  and  of 
the  State  of  California. 


173 


Olney:   We  thought  that  these  points  had  merit,  but  we  were  by  no  means  sure 
that  we  could  win  these  cases  in  the  supreme  court .  But  that  was 
not  the  matter  that  was  assigned  to  me.   Earl  Warren  told  me  that  he 
had  been  down  to  Los  Angeles  after  his  election  and  had  found  that 
the  gambling  ships  were  so  defiant  and  so  arrogant  that  he  would 
have  to  do  something  effective  to  stop  their  operations,  or  he 
couldn't  possibly  be  taken  seriously  in  his  efforts  to  halt  gambling 
on  the  shore.   He  said  he  discovered  that  the  ships  were  taking  full- 
page  newspaper  ads  about  their  operations,  all  the  games  that  were 
being  played,  where  to  take  the  water  taxis,  and  the  like;  that  they 
were  posting  billboards  all  around  town  with  pictures  of  the  ships  in 
the  ads;  that  they  were  advertising  on  the  radio,  "Come  play  on  the 
ships";  and  the  Rex  even  had  a  skywriter  that  was  writing  in  smoke, 
"Play  on  the  S.S.  Rex." 

Warren  said,  "With  things  like  this  going  on,  nobody  can  take  us 
seriously  when  we're  talking  about  dog  tracks  and  gambling  houses 
on  the  shore.  We  have  to  find  some  practical  way  of  bringing  these 
operations  to  a  stop.   And  it's  your  job  to  figure  out  how  to  do  it." 

Now,  as  I  approached  this,  I  found  there  had  been  work  done  in 
the  attorney  general's  office  before  I  got  there.   I  know  that  Helen 
MacGregor  had  some  connection  with  it.   It  may  well  be  that  she  is 
the  lawyer  who  first  worked  up  the  nuisance  theory.   At  any  rate, 
the  idea  of  using  the  law  on  public  nuisances  was  under  considera 
tion.   There  were  statutes  which  defined  what  a  public  nuisance  was. 
It  seemed  to  us  that  the  gambling  ships  clearly  came  within  the 
definition  of  the  statutes. 

There  were  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
and  of  the  State  of  California,  about  a  nuisance  which  has  its 
origin  in  one  jurisdiction  but  its  effects  in  another,  and  those 
cases  held  that  if  the  jurisdiction  where  the  effects  of  the 
nuisance  were  felt  can  get  physical  control  over  the  persons 
responsible,  they  can  issue  injunctions  requiring  them  to  abate  the 
nuisance  even  though  the  cause  of  it  might  be  outside  their  terri 
torial  limits.   And  the  way  they  enforce  that  is,  of  course,  by 
locking  the  defendants  up  in  jail  until  they  cause  the  nuisance  to 
be  abated. 

Now,  this  was  well  thought  out  and  pretty  well  developed,  as  I 
recall.   But  there  was  a  contribution,  in  addition,  which  I  made  to 
this,  and  this  was  the  one  on  which  we  finally  acted.   The  nuisance 
theory,  as  I  have  outlined  it,  contemplated  a  lawsuit,  that  a  com 
plaint  would  be  filed  and  an  order  to  show  cause  issued,  and  there 
would  have  to  be  a  trial  of  the  issues  before  the  court  would  issue 
a  final  order  directing  the  defendants  to  abate  the  nuisance  and 
threatening  to  lock  them  up  if  they  didn't. 


174 


Olney:   Well,  that  meant  a  lawsuit  and  a  long  delay,  and  we  knew  if  we 

started  that  kind  of  litigation  that  our  opponents  would  simply  do 
everything  they  could  to  postpone  the  trial,  to  delay  the  proceed 
ings  at  every  point,  and  meanwhile  they  would  go  ahead  operating 
the  ships  and  taking  in  huge  sums  of  money.  We  realized  we  couldn't 
possibly  get  that  case  to  trial  against  that  kind  of  opposition 
before  the  end  of  the  present  season,  and  then  they'd  fold  up  anyway 
because  of  the  winter.   And  then  they  would  go  into  court  and  move 
that  the  case  be  dismissed  as  moot  because  the  ships  weren't  operat 
ing  any  more  (they  would  probably  tow  them  in  for  the  winter) ,  and 
it  would  be  over.   And  then  the  next  season  they'd  open  up  again  and 
we'd  go  through  this  once  more.   As  I  have  mentioned,  this  had  hap 
pened  two  or  three  times  in  years  before  with  the  district  attorney's 
and  sheriff's  offices. 

It  had  happened  so  regularly  that  we  no  longer  had  any  confidence 
in  the  genuineness  of  the  intention  of  the  district  attorney's  office 
and  sheriff's  office  to  really  put  these  ships  out  of  business. 
They'd  have  these  raids — they  were  little  more  than  token  raids — but 
each  year  the  ships  operated  the  full  season  and  made  the  full  profit 
and  then  they'd  start  in  all  over  again  next  season. 

Now,  the  more  direct  approach  to  this  situation  was  an  additional 
remedy  which  the  statutes  provided  for  public  nuisance.   This  is  the 
remedy  of  summary  abatement.   It  means  that  if  there  is  a  public 
nuisance  established,  the  law  permits  the  public  authorities  to  move 
right  in  on  the  property  and  stop  the  nuisance  physically,  without 
going  to  any  court.   Now,  from  our  point  of  view,  the  tremendous 
advantage  of  that  would  be  that  we  could  abate  the  nuisance  by  our 
own  physical  intervention  and  they  wouldn't  be  operating  in  the  mean 
time.  We  were  prepared  to  lititate  their  right  to  operate,  but  if 
we  intervened  physically  by  way  of  abatement,  they  couldn't  operate 
while  the  litigation  was  going  on.   They  would  not  be  dragging  their 
feet  in  the  litigation.   Indeed,  if  they  thought  they  really  had  any 
legal  standing,  we  could  expect  them  to  press  for  a  prompt  decision. 


Planning  for  Summary  Abatement 


Olney:    In  consultation  with  Earl  Warren  and  Oscar  Jahnsen  and  others,  we 
decided  to  lay  plans  for  a  summary  abatement  of  those  ships .   But 
we  felt  that  we  had  to  keep  these  plans  to  ourselves  because  if  our 
opponents  on  the  other  side  became  aware  that  we  did  intend  to  act 
directly  and  immediately,  we  were  afraid  that  they  would  go  into 
court  and  try  to  get  a  restraining  order  from  the  court  against  us 
in  advance  of  our  taking  the  necessary  moves.   Then  we  would  be 
right  in  the  middle  of  a  lawsuit  while  the  ships  were  continuing  to 
operate. 


175 


Olney:   So  we  made  no  secret  that  we  were  thinking  in  terms  of  public 

nuisance,  but  we  were  very  secretive  about  any  plan  for  summary 
abatement. 

The  procedure  which  we  had  agreed  on  and  outlined  was  to  first 
serve  a  formal  notice  on  each  of  the  ships  and  their  operators  to 
abate  the  nuisance.  We  wanted  to  do  this  so  that  they  could  not 
claim  that  they  were  taken  by  surprise.  We  didn't  expect  that  they 
would  quit,  but  they  might.   This  would  make  it  clear  that  we  were 
going  to  take  some  further  course.   They  would  probably  expect  a 
lawsuit  to  abate  the  nuisance  by  injunction. 

We  wanted  them  to  know  that  some  action  was  going  to  be  taken, 
because  when  we  went  out — actually  got  men  out  to  go  on  board 
those  ships  for  the  direct  abatement — we  didn't  want  them  to  run 
any  undue  risks  of  being  shot  at  or  resisted  if  we  could  help  it. 
We  felt  that  if  the  ship  operators  knew  that  something  was  going 
to  happen,  that  something  would  come,  they  would  not  think  it  was 
hijackers  when  our  men  arrived  and  cause  any  serious  trouble. 

Well,  a  notice  to  abate  the  nuisance  was  prepared.   It  was  a 
lengthy  one.   It  listed  some  seven  different  grounds  on  which  the 
ships  constituted  public  nuisances  in  our  opinion.   The  notices 
were  taken  out  by  law  enforcement  officers  and  openly  and  publicly 
served  on  the  operators  of  the  ships.   The  newspapers  described  it 
as  a  raid.   It  wasn't  any  raid  at  all.   It  was  merely  serving  of 
these  notices  to  abate. 

The  notices  were  dated  July  29th,  and  were  signed  by  the  attorney 
general,  the  district  attorney,  and  the  sheriff.   But  before  this 
was  done,  we  had  to  get  ready  for  the  next  step.   A  complaint  asking 
for  a  permanent  injunction  was  being  drafted  with  the  same  allega 
tions  that  were  in  the  notice  for  an  abatement,  and  we  were  working 
with  the  district  attorney's  and  sheriff's  offices  in  drafting  this 
complaint.   But  at  the  same  time,  and  without  consulting  anyone  else, 
Oscar  Jahnsen  and  I  were  laying  plans  as  to  how  we  were  going  to 
close  those  ships  down  physically.   The  things  we  had  to  go  into 
turned  out  to  be  difficult  and  elaborate. 

We  concluded  the  only  thing  that  would  stop  those  ships  was  to 
actually  tow  them  into  harbor.   That  meant  that  we  would  have  to  go 
on  board  and  we  would  have  to  have  them  towed  in.  There  wouldn't 
be  so  much  difficulty  in  getting  on  board,  but  towing  them  in  might 
be  another  matter.   Only  one  of  these  ships  had  enough  power  on  it 
to  be  able  to  move  under  its  own  power;  that  was  the  Mount  Baker, 
also  known  as  Showboat .   The  others  were  mere  barges  that  were 
anchored  and  would  certainly  have  to  be  towed. 


176 


Olney:   We  realized  they  didn't  even  have  enough  power  on  board  to  raise 
their  own  anchors,  and  this  would  mean  we  would  have  to  cut  the 
lines.  Well,  anchors  of  that  size  are  worth  a  good  deal  of  money, 
and  if  we  were  to  cut  the  lines,  there  would  be  a  very  considerable 
loss  unless  we  could  devise  some  way  of  marking  the  anchors  on  the 
bottom,  so  that  later  they  could  be  hauled  up.   This  means  that  we 
had  to,  and  did,  arrange  to  have  floats  made.   They  were  made  out  of 
old  oil  drums  with  rings  welded  on  them  where  you  could  attach  a 
cable  to  them  and  put  it  on  the  anchor  chain,  and  put  a  float  out 
there,  and  you  could  find  the  anchor.  We  had  to  have  these  made. 

Then  we  realized  that  these  were  steel  cables,  I  think,  and  in 
more  than  one  instance  a  steel  chain,  and  we  would  have  to  get 
welders  to  cut  these,  so  we  had  to  (and  did)  arrange  for  a  crew  of 
welders  for  each  of  the  four  ships,  so  that  they  could  go  out  there 
and  cut  those  chains  and  attach  the  floats  and  we  could  find  the 
anchors  later. 

Then,  of  course,  we  would  have  to  tow  the  ships.  Well,  I  think 
there  was  only  one  tow  company  down  there — at  least,  there  was  only 
one  large  enough  to  have  four  tugs  available  at  one  time.  We  went 
around  and  had  some  confidential  talks  with  the  management  of  this 
tow  boat  company.  We  had  to  tell  them,  of  course,  what  we  wanted 
the  tow  boats  for.   They  said,  as  far  as  they  were  concerned,  they 
were  willing  to  take  the  job  and  they  had  the  boats  available,  so 
that  they  could  tow  them  in.  We  felt  it  was  very  important  to  move 
on  all  four  ships  at  the  same  time,  so  we  had  to  arrange  for  four 
tugs  and  their  crews. 

But  the  tow  boat  management  told  us  that  they  thought  we  might 
have  a  real  problem  because  the  maritime  union  rules  prohibited 
the  sailors  on  the  tugboats  from  taking  a  line  from  anybody  except 
ing  a  union  member.   Incidentally,  the  gambling  ship  boys  had  been 
smart  enough  to  make  their  crews  on  these  gambling  ships  members  of 
the  union. 

The  tugboat  people  said,  "Of  course,  if  you  can  persuade  the  crew 
of  the  ship  to  pass  the  line,  our  people  will  take  it  without  ques 
tion,  but  if  they  won't  do  it,  and  you've  got  some  deputy  sheriffs 
or  somebody  passing  the  line,  they  may  not  be  willing  to  take  it." 

Well,  to  us,  this  was  insurmountable.  We  could  not  go  to  the 
unions  and  tell  them  what  we  were  doing.   If  we  did,  that  would  be 
just  as  good  as  telling  the  ship  operators  themselves.   Not  only 
were  the  permanent  crew  members  of  the  gambling  ships  all  members 
of  the  union,  but  the  ships  themselves  had  subsidized  the  union 
treasuries  with  all  kinds  of  gifts,  and  things  of  this  kind,  for 
public  relations  reasons.   And  indeed,  when  the  attorney  general 
went  to  Los  Angeles  and  announced  his  intention  of  closing  the 


177 


Olney:  ships,  the  only  vocal  opposition  came  from  the  maritime  unions. 
They  objected  to  it  on  the  ground  that  it  would  deprive  some  of 
their  members  of  jobs. 

Well,  Oscar  and  I  decided  that  there  was  no  way  in  which  we 
could  solve  this  tugboat  problem  in  advance;  we'd  simply  have  to 
go  ahead  and  take  our  chances  on  what  happened.   We  felt  that  if 
the  ships  were  cut  loose,  and  were  just  drifting,  somebody  would 
have  to  tow  them  in.  The  Coast  Guard  would  probably  order  it,  if 
nothing  else.   But  there  was  that  weak  spot  in  our  plan. 

Now,  we  also  had  to  think  of  who  we  were  going  to  get  to  go  on 
board  these  ships,  and  what  was  going  to  happen  when  we  got  there. 
We  decided  that  we  must  raid  these  ships  in  open  daylight  and  not 
try  it  at  night  the  way  Fitts  had  done  with  his  raids.   But  there 
was  a  manpower  problem.  We  had  only  four  investigators  in  the 
attorney  general's  office  and  it  was  obvious  we  were  going  to  have 
to  use  personnel  from  somewhere  else.  We  were  hesitant  about  using 
the  sheriff's  men  and  the  district  attorney's  men  because  we  were 
very  concerned  about  the  unknown  relationships  that  might  exist 
there.   And  yet,  they  were  the  logical  peace  officers  for  it. 

Another  problem  came  up  when  the  attorney  general  got  to  Los 
Angeles  when  we  were  deciding  to  take  action  against  the  ships. 
When  he  took  the  matter  up  with  the  district  attorney  and  with  the 
sheriff,  they  were  very,  very  reluctant  to  do  anything  more  than 
they  had  done.   They  said  they  felt  that  it  would  be  flying  right 
into  the  teeth  of  the  decision  of  the  district  court  of  appeal, 
and  that  they  would  be  running  a  very  great  risk  on  their  bonds  if 
they  were  to  go  out  there  and  take  part  in  another  raid  on  the 
ships  when  the  decision  of  the  district  court  of  appeal  was  that 
the  ships  were  outside  of  the  state.   It  took  a  lot  of  arguing  to 
induce  them  to  realize  that  the  nuisance  theory  which  we  intended 
to  use  as  the  basis  of  our  action  assumed  that  the  ships  were  out 
side  the  state.   This  action  could  be  taken  anyway,  even  though 
they  were  beyond  the  state  line. 

The  thing,  however,  that  really  brought  Fitts  and  Biscailuz 
around  to  agreeing  that  they  would  take  part  was  the  action  of 
Mayor  Bowron  of  Los  Angeles.   On  July  27th,  1939,  he  made  a  public 
announcement  that  he  would  "cooperate  fully  with  Attorney  General 
Earl  Warren  in  the  attorney  general's  proposed  drastic  campaign  to 
clean  up  gambling  in  Los  Angeles  city  and  county,  and  on  land  and 
sea."  He  told  the  newspapers  and  he  told  the  attorney  general  that 
if  he  needed  manpower  to  carry  out  this  operation,  it  would  be 
provided  by  the  Los  Angeles  Police  Department. 


178 


Olney:   Now,  this,  of  course,  put  the  sheriff  and  the  district  attorney  on 
the  spot.   It  forced  them  to  agree  that  their  men  would  take  part 
in  this  operation  under  the  attorney  general's  direction.   Well, 
matters  were  moving  quite  rapidly,  of  course;  they  had  to.   The 
attorney  general  gave  Fitts  and  Biscailuz  a  figure  of  how  many  men 
he  thought  would  be  needed  from  the  sheriff's  office  and  how  many 
from  the  district  attorney's  office.   There  was  to  be  an  equal 
number  of  sheriff's  deputies  and  district  attorney's  investigators 
for  each  of  the  four  ships.   I  do  not  remember  the  number,  but  I 
think  it  was  about  twelve  from  each  office  for  each  ship.  We  needed 
that  many  to  smother  any  possible  resistance. 

We  asked  the  sheriff  and  the  district  attorney  to  make  their  own 
decisions  as  to  which  men  from  their  offices  should  be  assigned  and 
to  give  us  their  names,  which  they  did.   We  also  wanted  to  have 
people  from  our  own  office — lawyers,  in  particular — to  go  out  on 
these  trips  to  keep  things  under  control. 

Oscar  was  assigned  to  handling  the  two  ships  in  Santa  Monica  Bay, 
and  I  was  assigned  to  handling  the  two  in  San  Pedro  Bay.  We  needed 
other  people  from  our  office  to  provide  leadership  for  these  board 
ing  parties.  We  used  all  the  investigators  we  had,  and  we  also  took 
a  lawyer — at  least  one — from  the  attorney  general's  staff  for  each 
of  the  ships.   These  were  men  that  we  did  not  know  very  well.   They 
were  General  Webb's  people,  and  since  this  was  the  first  trip  to  Los 
Angeles  I  made  after  being  appointed,  I  in  particular  didn't  know 
them.   But  we  had  confidence  in  them,  and  we  took  them  in  on  our 
plans,  and  told  them  what  they  were  expected  to  do. 

But  then  we  also  had  to  give  thought  to  the  conditions  we  would 
meet  when  we  got  on  board .  We  thought  that  the  ships  might  well  be 
in  operation  and  that  there  would  be  members  of  the  public  there. 
In  fact,  three  of  them  were  in  full  public  operation.   This  is  why 
we  needed  as  many  men  from  the  sheriff's  office  as  we  did,  in  order 
to  see  that  nobody  got  hurt  if  fights  started,  and  things  of  that 
sort,  and  also  that  members  of  the  public  were  taken  off  the  ships 
as  rapidly  as  possible. 

But  we  realized  that  if  the  ships  were  in  operation,  there  was 
going  to  be  a  lot  of  money  around  on  the  tables,  and  also,  whether 
they  were  operating  or  not,  there  would  be  the  bank  roll  of  the 
ships.   They  all  had  offices  and  security  cages  where  the  money  was 
kept.   And  this,  we  realized,  presented  a  delicate  problem.  We  must 
take  possession  of  the  money  immediately,  and  we  must  be  able  to 
account  for  it.  We  had  to  be  able  to  account  for  it  so  we  couldn't 
be  accused  of  stealing  any  of  it.   Given  a  chance,  they  would  accuse 
us  of  this. 


179 


Olney:   So  to  handle  this,  we  decided  the  thing  to  do  was  take  some  account 
ants  with  each  one  of  the  boarding  parties.  We  used  Price-Waterhouse. 
They  assigned  two  accountants  for  each  of  the  boarding  parties  to  go 
along  and  take  immediate  charge  of  all  the  money  and  finances.   Their 
job — which  they  carried  out — was  to  go  on  board  and  see  that  all  the 
money  was  gathered  up  from  the  tables  and  taken  to  the  cages,  and 
then  get  the  office  manager  of  the  ship  and  proceed  to  count  it  in 
front  of  him  and  give  him  a  receipt  and  put  it  all  in  bags  and  get 
it  into  the  boats  and  bring  it  in  and  put  it  in  the  vault  of  the 
bank. 

This  they  did,  and  much  to  the  great  pleasure  of  the  accountants. 
(I  never  saw  men  have  a  better  time  than  they  did;  apparently  it  was 
quite  a  change  from  the  ordinary  accounting  practice  that  they  were 
accustomed  to.)   Well,  with  arrangements  like  this,  you  can  see  that 
it  could  take  quite  a  number  of  water  taxis  to  carry  all  these  people 
out  there. 

Stein:    I  was  just  going  to  ask  where  you  got  your  boats. 

Olney:   Well,  this  was  a  problem,  too.  We  did  have  one  great  help.   The 

Fish  and  Game  Commission  had  patrol  boats — there  were  four  of  them — 
that  they  made  available  to  us,  together  with  their  crews.   They 
were  larger  and  faster  than  any  of  the  water  taxis,  and  very  maneu- 
verable.   But  they  were  nowhere  near  big  enough  to  carry  all  the 
people  that  we  needed,  so  we  rented  water  taxis.   I  think  we  had 
four  water  taxis  plus  a  Fish  and  Game  patrol  boat  for  each  of  these 
ships.   It  was  a  regular  fleet! 

It  was  not  easy  getting  the  Fish  and  Game  Commission  patrol 
boats,  notwithstanding  the  willingness  of  the  commission  chairman 
to  go  just  as  far  as  he  could  to  help  us.   He  pointed  out  that  his 
men  were  authorized  to  enforce  the  fish  and  game  laws  only  and  did 
not  have  the  broad  authority  of  peace  officers.   The  patrol  boats 
also  were  authorized  for  the  same  limited  purpose  and  there  might 
well  be  serious  problems  arising  if  the  property,  funds,  or  person 
nel  of  the  commission  were  diverted  to  unauthorized  purposes. 
Furthermore,  the  insurance  carried  by  the  commission  on  both  boats 
and  crews  would  be  inoperative  when  they  were  used  for  something 
outside  their  regular  jurisdiction  and  duties. 

These  difficulties  were  met  by  our  entering  into  a  formal  agree 
ment  with  the  commission  to  charter  their  boats  for  a  stipulated 
time  period  for  an  agreed  rental  and  to  employ  their  crews  to 
operate  the  boats.  We  also  took  out  separate  insurance  policies 
on  both  boats  and  crews  to  cover  them  while  under  our  command.   The 
crews  were  chosen  for  us  by  the  chairman  of  the  commission  based  on 
his  personal  knowledge  of  their  individual  reliability  and  willing 
ness  to  take  part  in  this  kind  of  an  operation. 


180 


Olney:   When  the  time  came  I  found  myself,  to  my  great  surprise,  the  com 
mander  for  all  practical  purposes  of  a  fleet  of  four  patrol  boats, 
sixteen  water  taxis,  and  seventy-five  or  one  hundred  men.  We  were 
to  board  and  take  possession  of  four  large  ships  located  in  two 
widely  separated  bays  and  manned  by  hostile  crews  and  all  in  the 
presence  of  unfriendly  and  excitable  public  participants.   Quite 
an  assignment  for  a  young  man  who  had  never  commanded  so  much  as  a 
corporal's  guard. 


Olney:   D  Day  for  our  operation  was  the  day  following  the  day  we  got  the 
list  of  names  from  the  district  attorney's  and  sheriff's  offices. 
We  asked  the  sheriff's  and  the  district  attorney's  men  whose  names 
had  been  given  to  us  to  report  at  8:30  in  the  morning  to  Patriotic 
Hall,  which  is  a  hall  we  hired  down  on  Figueroa  Street,  without  any 
indications  as  to  what  the  purpose  of  it  was.   Even  the  sheriff  and 
district  attorney  did  not  realize  we  were  going  to  act  so  soon. 

Well,  they  all  showed  up,  and  when  they  were  there  we  locked  the 
doors,  and  Oscar  proceeded  to  explain  what  was  going  to  happen. 
They  were  divided  up  into  these  four  groups.  He  read  the  names  of 
all  the  men  who  were  to  be  in  each  boarding  party,  got  them  segre 
gated  in  the  room,  and  told  them  that  they  were  leaving  from  Patri 
otic  Hall  right  then  and  there  and  were  going  out  to  take  these 
ships. 

Well,  you  never  heard  such  a  hollering  and  squawking — "Oh,  you 
can't  do  this."   "I'm  not  feeling  well."   "I've  got  to  meet  my  wife 
downtown."   "Well,  I've  got  to  phone  home,"  and  almost  everything 
you  can  think  of.   But  Oscar  handled  these  people,  not  I,  and  he 
was  absolutely  adamant .   No  one  was  allowed  to  phone  and  no  one  was 
allowed  off  the  hook  either.  We  had  buses  out  there.  We  loaded 
buses  for  Santa  Monica  and  buses  for  San  Pedro,  and  we  tried  to 
time  it  so  we'd  get  on  board  these  water  taxis  and  put  to  sea  about 
the  same  time,  so  that  there  wouldn't  be  any  more  advance  notice  to 
anybody  than  we  could  help. 

Well,  considering  the  difficulties,  it  worked  remarkably  well. 
We  had  more  trouble  in  Santa  Monica  Bay  than  we  did  in  San  Pedro. 
When  they  went  on  board  the  Texas,  which  was  in  Santa  Monica  Bay, 
there  was  a  crowd  of  people  there  playing.   Our  people  did  not 
remove  the  crowd  fast  enough.   They  stayed  on  until  it  was  after 
dark.   Somebody  pulled  the  light  switch  and  a  regular  melee  started 
in  the  dark.   They  had  some  overly  enthusiastic  officers  who  pro 
ceeded  to  chop  up  crap  tables  and  throw  stuff  overboard.   There 


181 


Olney:   were  a  lot  of  pictures  in  the  papers  of  this  going  on,  which 

shouldn't  have  happened.  Not  with  the  public  on  board  there  like 
that.  It  got  out  of  hand.  It  was  not  run  the  way  it  should  have 
been  run. 

On  the  other  hand,  with  the  Rex,  they  were  going  full  blast  and 
Tony  was  on  board,  and  they  pulled  up  their  gangplank  and  got  out 
their  fire  hoses  and  wouldn't  let  anybody  on  board — kept  them  off 
with  the  hoses.   Our  people  made  no  effort  to  force  their  way  on 
board.  This  was  on  instructions,  not  to  do  that.  There  was  lots 
of  defiance  and  Tony  got  his  name  in  the  papers  and  all  kinds  of 
pictures.   They  accused  us  of  being  pirates  and  things  of  this  kind, 
and  at  first  it  looked  as  though  the  law  enforcement  people  were 
impotent.   Actually,  we  were  in  control  right  from  the  very  begin 
ning. 

When  Tony  said  the  officers  couldn't  come  on  board,  their  response 
was,  "Well,  nobody's  going  to  get  off  either."   Tony  had  over  six 
hundred  people  on  board  there,  and  there  were  a  lot  of  housewives 
who  wanted  to  get  home  and  get  dinner,  and  there  were  a  lot  of  people 
with  other  people's  wives  who  weren't  supposed  to  be  out  there 
[laughter],  and  it  wasn't  long  until  the  crowd  got  very  indignant 
and  very  outraged  with  Tony  for  not  doing  something  to  get  them  off 
that  ship . 

Stein:   That's  a  very  clever  tactic. 

Olney:   Oh,  we  could  hear  them  holler!   [laughter]   When  they'd  stood  around 
there  for  a  while,  Oscar  made  a  suggestion  that  he'd  bring  water 
taxis  in  there  one  at  a  time  to  take  all  these  members  of  the  public 
off,  on  the  agreement  that  none  of  the  ship  personnel  and  none  of 
the  gamblers  would  go  off  at  the  same  time.   Our  men  would  make  no 
effort  to  board  while  this  was  going  on.   And  this  was  done;  they 
took  them  all  off.   We  had  no  doubt  that  some  of  the  ship  personnel 
went  ashore  at  that  time,  but  not  enough  to  make  any  difference. 

But  then  there  they  were  with  all  their  hired  help  on  the  ship. 
Nobody  could  get  on  and  nobody  could  get  off.   Now,  this  blockade 
made  a  difficult  personnel  problem  for  us,  because  our  office  with 
only  four  men  could  not  keep  that  blockade  up,  so  what  we  decided 
to  do  was  to  turn  the  full  responsibility  over  to  the  sheriff's 
office.   They  had  the  men  and  they  couldn't  afford  to  admit  that 
their  blockade  couldn't  be  successful.   So  Oscar  and  the  other 
people  from  the  attorney  general's  office  came  away.   George 
Contreras,  the  under sher if f ,  and  his  people  stayed. 

They  sat  out  there  three  or  four  nights  and  days.   Now,  ostensi 
bly  the  ship  was  blockaded  all  that  time,  but  we  noticed  with  both 
interest  and  amusement  in  the  litigation  that  followed  that  we 


182 


Olney:   received  notarized  affidavits  from  Tony  Cornero  sworn  before  a 
notary  public  in  his  lawyer's  office  in  Santa  Monica  during  the 
time  he  was  supposed  to  be  blockaded  on  that  ship!   [laughter] 

But  in  the  meantime,  of  course,  all  of  Tony's  people  were  out 
there.   Their  wages  were  going  on.   The  cost  of  this  was  the  equiv 
alent  of  a  very  heavy  fine  every  day.   [laughter]   So  it  didn't  last 
too  long,  and  Tony  finally  agreed  that  he  would  let  our  men  come  on 
board  to  make  sure  that  there  would  be  no  further  operation.  Tony 
could  get  his  people  off  while  we  proceeded  to  litigate. 

Now,  in  San  Pedro  Bay  it  was  a  little  bit  different.   The  ship 
that  I  went  to  was  the  Tango ,  which  had  formerly  been  owned  by 
Tony.   It  was  the  biggest  ship  of  them  all,  a  better  ship  than  the 
Rex.   Tony  had  owned  and  operated  that  in  former  years,  but  he  lost 
his  financial  interest  in  it  in  a  crap  game,  and  it  was  being  oper 
ated  by  the  others. 

The  man  who  went  out  to  the  other  ship,  the  Mount  Baker,  was 
Burdette  Daniels  from  the  attorney  general's  office,  and  he  was  in 
charge  there.   Now,  the  Mount  Baker  was  in  operation,  and  Burdette 
and  his  men  had  no  difficulty  at  all  in  going  on  board,  and  they 
served  their  papers  and  proceeded  as  planned.   The  accountants  did 
what  they  were  supposed  to  do  and  the  public  was  taken  off  the  ship 
immediately.   No  problems  developed  there. 

When  I  went  out  to  the  Tango ,  they  had  gotten  word  in  advance 
and  there  were  no  members  of  the  public  on  it .   The  ship  had  a  plat 
form  on  the  side  with  a  steel  door  that  would  roll  up  and  down  like 
a  garage  door.   You  worked  it  with  a  crank.   They  had  that  thing 
down  so  that  nobody  could  get  on.   The  reason  for  that  set-up  was 
because  of  the  dangers  of  hijacking.   They  had  to  have  some  way  of 
shutting  off  access. 

When  we  came  up  with  our  five  boats,  the  captain  and  others  were 
looking  over  the  rail.   I  told  them  that  I  wanted  to  come  on  board 
and  they  said,  "Nope,  you  can't  come."  So  I  said,  "All  right,  we'll 
be  back  later."  Then  I  took  all  our  boats,  the  whole  procession  of 
them,  and  we  went  over  to  the  Mount  Baker  to  see  how  they  were  making 
out  there,  and  found  that  everything  was  under  control  there.   So 
then  we  started  back  to  the  Tango ,  but  this  time  we  took  only  the 
patrol  boat  and  left  everyone  else  behind.  We  weren't  going  to  need 
them  if  the  public  wasn't  there;  I  mean,  not  need  them  immediately. 

So  there  was  only  one  boat  that  came  up  to  the  Tango .   I  had 
everybody  else  on  the  patrol  boat  below  deck,  so  that  the  fellows 
that  were  driving  the  boat  and  I  were  the  only  ones  visible.   We 
came  up  again  and  I  said,  "I  want  to  come  aboard.   I  want  to  talk 
to  you."  Well,  they  cranked  this  door  up  so  I  could  come  on  board 


183 


Olney:   and  I  stepped  off  onto  the  landing  platform  with  my  shoulder  under 
the  door.  You  know,  if  you  do  that,  you  can't  crank  those  things 
down.   So  I  held  the  door  up  and  then  everybody  else  came  up  from 
the  bottom  of  the  patrol  boat.   The  sailor  with  the  crank  lifted  it 
in  the  air  as  though  to  strike  me,  but  one  of  our  crew  jumped  on  the 
landing,  grabbed  his  arm,  and  threw  the  crank  into  the  ocean.   There 
was  no  other  resistance.  We  signaled  for  our  other  boats  to  come 
over  and  we  occupied  the  Tango . 

One  of  the  things  that  I  failed  to  mention  that  we  had  to  plan 
for  in  advance  was  the  liquor.   They  had  liquor  on  all  these  ships. 
We  knew  that  if  we  didn't  want  to  have  trouble,  we  had  to  be  sure 
that  that  stuff  was  locked  up  and  locked  up  immediately.   And  with 
a  lot  of  the  kind  of  deputy  sheriffs  we  had  who  were  going  to  have 
to  stay  on  the  boats,  we  wanted  to  make  sure  that  that  stuff  was 
secure.  We  took  out  special  locks  and  we  took  every  precaution 
against  anybody  getting  into  the  liquor  on  board  the  ships. 

When  I  finally  got  on  the  Tango .  the  tables  were  not  in  operation 
and  were  all  covered  over.   We  went  into  the  office  and  found  this 
huge  amount  of  money.   In  those  days,  as  I  have  mentioned  before, 
they  were  using  silver  dollars,  mostly.   The  amount  of  money  was 
very  impressive.   I  suddenly  realized  that  we  had  actual  physical 
possession  of  their  bank  roll  and  we  did  on  all  four  ships!   We  had 
anticipated  this  to  some  extent.  We  had  thought  enough  about  it  to 
have  the  accountants  come  along  to  handle  the  money,  but  it  really 
did  not  occur  to  me  until  it  was  accomplished  that  if  we  got  physical 
possession  of  the  bank  roll  it  would  be  decisive.   Gamblers  can't 
operate  without  money.   There  might  be  question  as  to  whether  these 
funds  were  subject  to  forfeiture,  but  to  get  them  back  they  would 
have  to  bring  a  suit,  which  would  take  time,  and  they  couldn't 
operate  in  the  meantime.   They  could  not  operate  as  long  as  we  had 
possession  of  their  bank  rolls. 

I  did  not  send  for  any  tugs  or  for  any  welders  to  cut  any  chains. 
The  longer  I  was  out  there,  the  surer  I  was  that  we  didn't  have  to 
tow  those  boats  in  now  to  keep  them  from  operating.   They  would  have 
to  litigate  with  us  without  being  able  to  operate  in  the  meantime 
because  we  had  the  money. 

While  I  was  out  there,  a  Coast  Guard  cutter  came  steaming  by  and 
the  skipper  hollered  that  he  had  heard  what  we  were  doing  and  that 
we  had  no  right  out  there  and  to  get  off.   I  said,  "I'll  come  aboard 
and  show  you  our  authority."   So  they  sent  a  boat  over  and  picked  me 
up  and  I  went  aboard  his  cutter.   (I  didn't  want  them  coming  on  board 
the  Tango . )   The  commander,  whose  name  was  Greenwood,  was  quite 
hostile  and  said  that  we  had  no  jurisdiction  out  there;  we  weren't 
any  better  than  a  bunch  of  pirates,  using  Tony's  language. 


184 


Olney:  I  said,  "We  are  properly  authorized  law  officers  and  we  were  acting 
under  legal  authority  from  our  courts  and  you  interfered  with  us  at 
your  own  risk." 

I  should  have  mentioned  to  you  that  besides  the  notice  to  abate, 
which  we'd  served  a  day  or  so  before,  we  also  took  with  us  felony 
warrants  for  operating  bookmaking  on  the  ships,  based  on  the  theory 
they  were  inside  the  state  limits.   It  wouldn't  do  any  harm  to  have 
them  and  to  serve  them  if  needed. 

We  also  had  prepared  our  complaint  for  an  injunction  and  had 
gotten  a  temporary  restraining  order  against  the  further  operation 
of  these  nuisances  from  Judge  Wilson,  and  we  had  served  that  on  the 
ships'  personnel.  We  we  hit  them  with  all  the  legal  proceedings  we 
could.   I  had  the  papers,  at  least,  and  could  show  them  to  the 
skipper  on  the  Coast  Guard  vessel.   After  looking  at  the  papers,  he 
finally  said,  "Well,  I  guess  you  know  what  you're  doing.   I  think 
I'll  go  over  to  Santa  Monica  Bay.   There's  trouble  there."   I  did 
not  tell  Commander  Greenwood  that  the  attorney  general  had  informed 
his  superior,  Captain  Parker,  of  our  plans  in  advance  and  had 
received  his  approval. 

Stein:   Why  do  you  suppose  he  was  so  hostile? 

Olney:   He  was  very  friendly  with  Tony  Cornero.  We  ran  across  very  buddy- 
buddy  conversations  between  the  two  of  them  when  I  had  a  tap  put  on 
Tony's  telephone.   Cornero  buttered  up  everybody  he  could,  even  the 
ministers.   There  was  a  minister  in  a  little  old  church  in  Santa 
Monica,  and  every  time  he  needed  something  like  a  new  pulpit  or  a 
paint  job  or  something  like  that,  he'd  get  it  out  of  Tony.   This 
Coast  Guard  commander  had  been  given  the  same  course  of  treatment, 
I  think. 

Anyway,  later  in  the  day,  another  boat  came  out  and  circled  us 
and  hollered  at  us.   This  was  a  very  swank  motor  yacht,  beautiful. 
One  of  the  men  on  it  was  a  lawyer  named  Stratton  from  Long  Beach. 
He  was  the  attorney  for  the  owners  of  the  Tango ,  and  identified 
himself,  and  wanted  to  know  what  we  were  doing  out  there  on  his 
clients'  ship.   So  I  told  him,  "Well,  if  you  want  to  come  on  board, 
I'll  give  you  all  the  papers."  He  said,  "Thanks,  no."  I  said,  "You 
can  count  on  it  that  the  attorney  general's  office  will  be  happy  to 
send  them  anywhere  you  want."  So  he  said,  "All  right."  Later  on 
I  got  to  know  him  better.   For  a  time  he  was  Fred  Howser's  first 
assistant  when  he  became  district  attorney  of  Los  Angeles  County. 

I  got  word — we  had  no  telephone  messages  and  no  radio  out  there — 
but  I  got  word  by  somebody  who  came  out  in  one  of  the  boats  (it  was 
the  skipper  of  the  Coast  Guard  cutter)  that  they  were  having  problems 
down  in  Santa  Monica  Bay.   I  didn't  know  what,  and  there  wasn't  any 
thing  I  could  do  about  it,  but  from  what  I'd  seen  on  the  Tango ,  I 


185 


Olney:   realized  that  we  would  be  taking  unnecessary  chances,  completely 
unnecessary  chances,  if  we  tried  to  cut  those  ships  loose  and  tow 
them  in  as  we  had  originally  planned.   It  wasn't  necessary,  and  so 
I  sent  a  messenger  to  Oscar  to  tell  him  under  no  circumstances  to 
cut  the  ships  loose  or  to  try  to  tow  them  in.  We  didn't  need  to  do 
that. 

I  also  sent  word  to  the  attorney  general  that  I  was  convinced 
that  we  didn't  need  to  do  it.   I  might  say  that  while  this  was  going 
on,  Earl  Warren  and  Huron  Fitts  and  Eugene  Biscailuz  were  in  a  suite 
of  rooms  that  they  had  at  one  of  the  beach  clubs  at  Santa  Monica, 
and  they  could  sit  there,  and  with  field  glasses  they  could  watch 
what  was  going  on  in  Santa  Monica  Bay.   They  stayed  there  until  it 
got  dark.   Because  of  this,  we  knew  where  they  were,  and  if  we 
needed  to  get  any  instructions  we  could  get  them. 

Well,  when  the  night  came,  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  stay  out 
there  on  the  ships.   I  stayed  on  mine,  Burdette  Daniels  stayed  on 
his,  Oscar  stayed  out  on  the  boats  blockading  the  Rex,  and  Paul 
McCormick,  I  think  it  was,  stayed  on  the  Texas. 

Stein:   Was  this  when  you  slept  on  the  crap  tables? 

Olney:   Well,  I  slept  on  the  Tango .   I  guess  I  slept  on  a  crap  table — no,  I 
didn't.   That  was  later  when  I  slept  on  the  Rex. 


Results  of  the  Litigation 

Olney:   The  litigation  went  about  as  you  would  expect.   The  owners  of  these 
operations  ran  for  cover  when  this  raid  took  place,  because  they 
didn't  know  what  they  were  going  to  get  hit  with.   This  was  some 
thing  that  they  had  not  expected.   But  they  had  to  come  out  of  the 
woodwork  because  we  had  their  bank  rolls  as  well  as  the  ships ;  and 
they  did,  through  their  attorneys. 

We  quickly  reached  an  agreement  with  the  operators  of  the  Tango 
that  they  would  not  attempt  to  operate  the  ship  any  more,  that  they 
would,  in  fact,  agree  to  discontinue  the  ship's  operation.   They 
knew  they  couldn't  operate  again  that  season  with  the  litigation 
going  on.   They  agreed  to  tow  the  ship  in  themselves  at  their  own 
expense,  and  to  leave  the  gambling  equipment  on  board  to  be  deter 
mined  whether  it  should  be  forfeited  or  not,  if  we  agreed  to  release 
the  bank  roll,  and  we  agreed  to  do  that. 


186 


Olney:   That  was  done  very  quickly.   The  arrangement  that  we  made  with  the 

Showboat,  the  Mount  Baker  (that  was  known  by  two  names)  was  a  little 
bit  different.   They  refused  to  tow  their  boat  in  and  refused  to 
make  any  concessions  about  the  gambling  equipment.   The  only  agree 
ment  they  would  make  is  that  they  would  not  attempt  to  operate,  and 
they  would  take  everybody  off  and  keep  everybody  off  excepting  the 
minimum  crew  that  was  needed  to  keep  it  at  sea.   And  there  were 
other  guarantees  that  they  gave  us  that  I  don't  remember — that  they 
wouldn't  operate — in  return  for  which  we  gave  them  their  bank  roll. 
I  believe  they  consented  to  a  preliminary  injunction  against  operat 
ing  gambling  games  on  the  ship. 

The  Texas  in  Santa  Monica  Bay  ended  up  with  some  similar  arrange 
ment.   I  think  it  was  just  about  like  that  with  the  Mount  Baker,  but 
they  wanted  to  stay  out  at  sea.   They  wouldn't  bring  it  in,  but  just 
kept  a  minimal  crew  on  board.   They  tried  to  go  through  the  winter 
out  there,  but  they  got  hit  by  a  storm  and  the  ship  sank. 

With  Cornero,  after  we  got  aboard,  the  arrangement  was  similar. 
The  equipment  would  be  left  on  the  ship;  whether  it  was  subject  to 
forfeiture  would  be  determined  at  a  later  date.   They  consented  to 
the  preliminary  injunction  not  to  operate  the  games  in  the  meantime. 
What  other  concessions  we  made  to  them,  I  don't  remember.   My  recol 
lection  is  that  in  the  case  of  the  Rex  we  did  not  give  them  the  bank 
roll.   I'm  unclear  about  that. 

Well,  the  cases  rattled  along  as  you  would  expect  them  to.   I  was 
supposed  to  be  overseeing  the  litigation  for  these  cases,  but  we  had 
accomplished  our  purpose,  as  you  can  see  by  what  we  had  done.   Those 
ships  stopped  their  operations  the  day  we  went  on  board  and  they 
never  operated  again.  We  litigated.  We  ended  up  by  winning  the 
litigation.   Judge  Wilson  decided  that  our  nuisance  theory  was  valid, 
and  he  issued  a  permanent  injunction  against  each  of  the  ship's 
managements  and  owners,  not  only  from  operating  those  ships,  but 
from  operating  any  similar  ships  in  the  future.   Those  were  injunc 
tions  against  the  persons  involved. 


The  Outcome  for  Tony  Cornero 

Olney:   But  we  went  ahead  with  further  litigation  with  Cornero.   He  got  very 
obstreperous.   In  the  injunction  suit  we  wanted  to  take  his  deposi 
tion.  He  appeared  with  his  lawyer,  Louis  Pink,  to  answer  the  ques 
tions,  but  he  refused  to  answer  any  questions  except  his  name.   I 
asked  him  about  the  ownership  of  the  operation,  and  who  he  was 
principal  for,  and  things  of  this  kind,  and  he  wouldn't  answer  those 
questions,  although  his  lawyer  advised  him  to.   So  on  the  basis  of 


187 


Olney:    this  we  cited  him  for  contempt  of  court  for  failing  to  answer  the 
questions.   Judge  Wilson  ruled  that  the  questions  were  proper  and 
that  he  should  answer  them.  When  the  questions  were  repeated, 
Cornero  pleaded  the  Fifth  Amendment  to  each  and  every  one. 

We  also  brought  a  suit,  with  permission  of  the  Public  Utilities 
Commission,  for  operating  the  water  taxis  as  a  public  utility  with 
out  a  permit,  with  a  $2,500  per  day  penalty  for  every  day  of  opera 
tion  without  a  permit.   Neither  Cornero  nor  the  taxis  had  ever 
gotten  a  permit.   So  a  suit  for  something  like  $750,000  in  penalties 
was  filed.  The  state,  unlike  a  private  person,  in  a  suit  for 
penalties  of  that  kind  can  attach  without  posting  a  bond.   So  we 
attached  a  lot  of  things,  bank  accounts,  all  sorts  of  things.   This 
is  why  I'm  quite  sure  we  did  not  give  Cornero  back  his  bank  roll, 
because  we  got  his  bank  accounts  attached,  too,  and  a  lot  of  other 
things . 

As  part  of  our  legal  blitz  against  Cornero,  we  also  had  issued  a 
felony  warrant  for  bookmaking,  a  new  one,  in  connection  with  the 
1939  operations,  and  had  him  arrested  on  that.  He  had  a  preliminary 
hearing  before  Judge  William  McKay.   Judge  McKay  discharged  him  on 
the  ground  that  the  decision  of  the  court  of  appeal  was  controlling, 
the  ship  was  not  inside  the  state,  and  so  Cornero  was  dismissed.  We 
later  learned,  almost  at  the  same  time,  it  was  not  an  honest  decision. 
It  was  paid  for  by  Tony. 

Stein:    Could  you  just  tell  the  story  briefly  of  how  you  found  that  out?   I 
thought  that  was  an  interesting  story. 

Olney:   Well,  we  had  a  tap  on  Tony's  telephone.   In  those  days  that  was  not 
regarded  as  illegal,  either  as  a  violation  of  state  or  federal  law. 
The  view  was  that  it  was  not  covered  by  the  Federal  Communications 
Act.   There  were  no  decisions  of  courts  saying  that  it  was  illegal 
when  the  taps  were  made  by  law  enforcement  officers  in  the  investi 
gation  of  crime.   That  is  why  we  felt  we  had  proper  authority  to  do 
it. 

We  heard  this  conversation  between  Tony  and  Judge  McKay  which 
left  us  in  no  doubt  about  the  situation. 

With  all  this  litigation,  as  you  can  see,  it  was  getting  very 
thick  for  Cornero.   It  was  October,  November;  the  season  was  all 
over.   In  August  of  '39  the  war  had  started  in  Europe  and  the 
future  of  fancy  things  like  the  gambling  ships  was  pretty  question 
able.   Tony  was  a  very  sharp  operator  and  already,  even  before  his 
troubles  with  the  gambling  ships  were  over,  had  perceived  the  rise 
in  value  of  ship  bottoms  that  was  bound  to  occur  because  of  the 
outbreak  of  hostilities,  and  he  was  actually  in  the  process  of 
trying  to  buy  up  other  ships,  not  for  gambling  purposes,  but  for 
wartime  trade  purposes.  He  wanted  to  get  out  of  all  this  litigation. 


188 


Olney:   He  came  to  San  Francisco  with  Jerry  Giesler,  who  was  his  attorney 

at  this  time  (in  the  criminal  aspects  at  least) ,  to  see  the  attorney 
general  and  to  see  about  getting  the  litigation  cleared  up.   Tony 
wanted  to  come  into  the  conference,  and  the  attorney  general  told 
Giesler  that  under  no  circumstances  could  Cornero  come  into  his 
office,  that  his  conduct  had  been  outrageous,  and  he'd  be  happy  to 
talk  to  Giesler,  but  he  wasn't  going  to  have  Tony  around.   So  Tony 
cooled  his  heels  in  the  reception  room  while  Giesler  explained  that 
they  were  tired  of  the  litigation  and  they  wanted  to  discuss  winding 
it  all  up. 

At  that  time  the  attorney  general  told  Giesler  that  he  thought  it 
was  a  wise  thing  for  him  to  do,  and  told  him  that  it  would  be  bound 
to  come  out  sooner  or  later  if  litigation  continued  that  Tony  had 
paid  for  Judge  McKay's  decision  and  we  could  prove  it.   He  told  him 
frankly  what  we  had.   Giesler,  who  had  represented  Tony  at  that 
preliminary  hearing,  said  this  was  a  great  deflation  to  his  ego, 
that  he  had  thought  he  had  won  that  case  through  his  own  legal 
ability.   But  he  asked  permission  to  consult  with  his  client,  which, 
of  course,  he  was  given,  and  they  talked  somewhere  privately  in  the 
building  for  an  hour  or  more,  and  Giesler  came  back  and  (making  no 
reference  to  this  earlier  conversation)  simply  said  they  wanted  to 
end  it  on  whatever  terms  the  attorney  general  thought  were  fair. 

Well,  we  insisted  that  he  consent  to  the  entering  of  a  permanent 
injunction  against  his  operating  any  gambling  ships  then  or  in  the 
future.  We  agreed  to  return  the  bank  roll,  I'm  sure. 

Now,  I  have  in  front  of  me  some  notes  that  were  taken  from  news 
paper  clippings  that  I  think  are  correct,  that  in  the  settlement 
Cornero  agreed  that  all  of  the  gaming  equipment  would  be  destroyed. 
He  agreed  to  pay  $13,200  in  abatement  and  costs.   That  was  to 
reimburse  the  attorney  general's  office  for  the  expenses  to  which 
the  office  had  been  put.  There  was  $4,200  in  taxes  that  he  agreed 
to  pay,  and  a  $7,500  compromise  claim  with  the  Public  Utilities 
Commission  for  operating  a  public  utility  without  a  license. 

The  Rex  was  eventually  sold.   It  was  taken  to  Newport  Beach  and 
reconverted  into  a  sea^going  ship.   I  believe  that  the  motor  power 
was  taken  out  and  she  was  reconverted  to  a  sailing  ship.   The  Rex 
had  been  built  as  a  sailing  ship  in  England  in  1886.   Tony  had  re 
built  her  with  two  four-hundred-foot  decks  for  gambling  at  a  cost  of 
$250,000.   At  any  rate,  she  went  on  a  voyage,  as  I  understand, 
loaded  with  grain,  and  eventually  was  torpedoed  in  the  Indian  Ocean, 
so  she  came  to  an  honorable  end. 

The  basis  of  the  settlement  was  not  to  try  to  stick  Tony  for 
every  penny  he  had.  We  tried  to  get  back  into  the  state  treasury 
the  amount  of  money  that  it  had  cost  the  state  in  the  investigations 
and  litigation,  plus  a  moderate  amount  as  fine.   Now,  these  were 


189 


Olney:    figured  on  a  rough  basis.  We  did  not  press  the  criminal  charges, 

the  bookmaking  indictments  and  things  of  that  kind,  because  Tony  had 
always  claimed  that  he  was  operating  within  the  law,  that  the  law 
didn't  reach  him  out  there,  and  we  couldn't  say  that  he  was  in  bad 
faith  on  that,  especially  after  he  had  a  couple  of  lower  court 
rulings  in  his  favor. 

Then  there  was  the  matter  of  the  gambling  equipment;  that  was 
still  an  issue.  We  insisted,  and  this  was  a  hard  thing  for  Tony 
to  take,  that  the  equipment  still  on  board  the  Rex  be  forfeited, 
taken  ashore  and  destroyed.   They  finally  agreed  to  that.   Now,  it 
was  in  carrying  that  out  that  we  had  another  little  to-do  with  the 
ship  itself. 

That  was  agreed  to  by  Giesler,  and  even  by  Tony,  but  Tony  always 
claimed  just  to  be  an  agent.  We  got  wind  of  the  fact  that  others, 
who  were  going  to  claim  that  they  were  the  real  owners  and  were  not 
bound  by  this  agreement,  were  going  to  try  to  move  the  Rex  or  at 
least  take  the  equipment  off  the  ship  so  that  we  couldn't  get  at  it 
and  destroy  it.   Oscar  and  George  Griffin  and  I  and  others  went  out 
onto  the  ship  and  we  stayed  overnight  on  that  ship  that  time;  that's 
when  I  think  I  slept  on  the  crap  table.   At  any  rate,  that's  when  I 
got  to  know  Tony's  captain  of  the  Rex.  We  all  had  dinner  together 
and  stayed  around  there  on  that  ship  overnight  killing  time  until 
this  equipment  thing  got  settled. 

Stein:   What  happened  with  the  equipment  eventually?  Was  it  burned? 

Olney:   We  took  the  equipment  ashore.   I  believe  that  the  slot  machines  were 
dumped  into  the  ocean  because  they  would  sink.   They  were  metal  and 
would  sink,  and  they  wouldn't  be  any  good  if  you  dredged  them  up. 
But  anything  that  would  float  or  was  wood  we  burned.   It  was  taken 
ashore  and  put  in  a  pile  and  kerosene  poured  on  it  and  burned.  We 
were  careful  to  take  photographs  of  all  of  it  from  each  of  the  ships. 
We  destroyed  the  equipment  on  the  Tango  the  same  way.   The  Texas 
equipment  went  down  with  the  ship  except  for  the  stuff  that  was 
thrown  off  and  destroyed  in  the  initial  raid. 

The  Mount  Baker  tried  to  haul  up  anchor  and  escape  rather  than 
surrender  their  equipment,  and  Oscar  Jahnsen  and  others  in  one  of 
the  patrol  boats  which  happened  to  be  down  there  (I  wasn't)  saw  the 
tug  out  there  working  with  the  ship,  and  they  went  out  and  went  on 
board  at  the  point  of  a  gun  and  stopped  them  from  doing  it.   We 
took  that  equipment  off  and  after  long  litigation  eventually 
destroyed  that,  too. 

The  reason  for  destroying  this  was  that  we  had  had  experience 
with  gambling  houses  on  shore  where  raids  were  made  and  equipment 
was  left  with  the  owners  on  the  promise  that  it  wouldn't  be  used 


190 


Olney:   again,  that  they  would  ship  it  into  Nevada.   But  this  stuff  could 

always  come  back  into  our  state  again  and  claims  would  be  made  that 
it  was  with  our  connivance.   So  we  didn't  want  this  stuff  coming 
back  and  it  never  did. 


The  Nootka  Sound  Convention 


Stein:   You  mentioned  when  we  were  talking  earlier,  before  the  tape  was 

turned  on,  that  the  question  about  the  three-mile  limit  is  still  in 
the  courts. 

Olney:   Well,  this  is  a  point  that  has  to  do  with  the  limits  of  the  state 
that  was  never  raised  in  this  litigation  at  all.   It's  never  been 
raised  in  any  litigation  that  I  know  of.   It  was  one  that  I  worked 
out  myself,  but  it  came  simply  through  information  that  I  had  about 
the  Nootka  Sound  controversy  of  1790.   It  has  never  occurred  to 
anybody  (as  far  as  I  know)  who  has  been  concerned  with  our  seaward 
boundary  that  the  Nootka  Sound  controversy  and  compact  has  any 
bearing  on  this.   The  history  of  this  is  all  in  Bancroft's  works. 

Nootka  Sound  on  the  west  side  of  Vancouver  Island  was  a  fur 
trading  post.   In  the  late  1780s,  the  English  had  succeeded  in 
crossing  Canada  and  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  had  put  a  trader  or  two 
in  a  little  hut  at  Nootka  Sound  for  trading  purposes.   This  was 
the  first  settlement  of  any  kind  on  the  shores  of  the  Pacific  by 
anybody  excepting  the  Spaniards. 

The  Spaniards  had  always  claimed  that  they  had  exclusive  owner 
ship  and  jurisdiction  of  the  Pacific  Ocean  because  of  Columbus 's 
and  Balboa's  discoveries,  confirmed  by  a  papal  bull  of  many  years 
before  in  the  1500s,  when  the  pope  had  divided  the  newly  found 
areas  between  Spain  on  the  one  hand  and  Portugal  on  the  other.   The 
award  to  Spain  included  the  whole  Pacific  coast  of  America  and  most 
of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and  Spain  had  always  insisted  on  her  exclusive 
rights. 

The  first  intruders  were  the  Russians,  but  they  were  all  the  way 
up  in  the  Aleutian  Islands.   They  alarmed  the  Spanish  very  much, 
and  their  intrusion  was  one  of  the  reasons  why  the  Spaniards  sent 
out  colonizing  expeditions  from  Mexico  into  California.   About  1789, 
they  got  wind  of  the  fact  that  the  English  were  on  Nootka  Sound,  and 
they  sent  a  naval  expedition  to  Nootka.   They  proceeded  to  capture 
the  English  traders  there,  to  reduce  the  trading  post,  to  make 
prisoners  of  the  traders,  to  take  them  to  Acapulco,  to  send  them  to 
Spain,  and  they  eventually  were  re-patriated  to  England. 


191 


Olney:   But  this  caused  a  tremendous  international  hullabaloo.   The  English 
at  the  time  were  spoiling  for  an  excuse  to  go  to  war  with  Spain  and 
started  beating  the  war  drums,  and  they  undoubtedly  would  have  gone 
to  war  with  Spain  excepting  that  their  land  allies  in  such  a  war, 
on  whom  they  were  counting,  were  the  French.   They  were  looking  to 
France  for  the  foot  soldiers,  and  they  came  to  the  realization  that 
the  French  monarchy  was  so  shaky  that  it  couldn't  be  relied  on  in 
any  kind  of  a  war. 

The  result  of  all  this  was  that  there  was  a  settlement  at  a 
conference  between  the  Spanish  and  the  English.   In  the  resulting 
compact,  Spain  relinquished  for  the  first  time  her  claim  to  exclusive 
jurisdiction  over  the  whole  Pacific  Ocean  and  recognized  the  right  of 
the  British  to  cruise  there.   She  also  recognized  the  right  of  the 
British  to  establish  settlements  on  the  Pacific  coast  in  areas  not 
occupied  by  the  Spanish,  i.e.  north  of  Cape  Mendocino.   In  return 
Great  Britain  agreed  not  to  permit  her  subjects  to  engage  in  trade 
with  the  colonies  of  Spain  contrary  to  Spanish  law  and  also  agreed 
that  her  subjects  and  ships  would  not  approach  the  Spanish  Pacific 
coast,  i.e.  the  coast  south  of  Cape  Mendocino,  closer  than  ten  marine 
leagues.  On  this  point  the  language  of  the  compact  is:   "Art.  4. 
His  Britannic  majesty  engages  to  take  the  most  effectual  measures  to 
prevent  the  navigation  and  fishery  of  his  subjects  in  the  Pacific 
Ocean,  or  in  the  South  Seas,  from  being  made  a  pretext  for  illicit 
trade  with  the  Spanish  settlements;  and  with  this  view,  it  is  more 
over  expressly  stipulated,  that  British  subjects  shall  not  navigate, 
or  carry  on  their  fishery  in  the  said  seas,  within  the  space  of  ten 
sea  leagues  from  any  part  of  the  coasts  already  occupied  by  Spain," 
Nootka  Sound  Compact,  signed  by  Great  Britain  and  Spain,  October  28, 
1790.  This  established  for  Spain,  as  against  Great  Britain,  a  limit 
along  the  major  part  of  the  California  coast  of  ten  marine  leagues 
or  thirty  miles.   As  against  the  rest  of  the  world,  Spain  still 
claimed  her  ancient  exclusive  right  to  the  whole  ocean  and  its 
Pacific  coast. 

Mexico  succeeded  to  the  Spanish  title  to  California  and  consis 
tently  claimed  a  limit  of  ten  marine  leagues  offshore  which  no 
foreign  ship  could  legally  enter  by  virtue  of  Spain's  ancient  rights 
and  the  Nootka  Sound  Compact. 

The  United  States  succeeded  to  the  Mexican  title  to  California 
and  by  the  Treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo  acquired  all  Mexico's  juris 
diction  or  claims  to  jurisdiction  over  the  land  and  the  bordering 
seas. 

This  is  a  very  abbreviated  sketch  of  the  historical  steps  which 
seemed  to  me  to  make  it  possible  for  the  United  States  and  the  State 
of  California  to  claim  a  seaward  limit  along  the  California  coast  of 
ten  marine  leagues,  or  thirty  miles,  based  on  Spain's  ancient  claims 
to  jurisdiction  over  the  Pacific  as  subsequently  limited  by  the 
Nootka  Sound  Compact  of  1790. 


192 


The  California  Supreme  Court  and  the  S.S.  Rex 


Olney:   Going  back  to  the  gambling  ships  and  Tony  Cornero  and  the  S.S.  Rex, 
I'm  not  sure  that  I  put  in  the  factual  data  about  the  end  of  the 
case. 

It  was  on  November  20,  1939  that  the  California  Supreme  Court 
announced  its  decision  in  the  Adams  case  that  the  Rex  was  inside 
the  territorial  limits  of  the  state  of  California.   In  that  case 
they  held  that  Santa  Monica  Bay  was  a  true  bay,  that  the  sea  bound 
ary  of  the  state  did  not  follow  the  line  three  miles  offshore.   On 
the  contrary,  it  included  all  the  bays,  so  that  the  sea  boundary 
was  three  miles  to  the  sea  beyond  a  straight  line  going  from  Point 
Vincente  to  Point  Dume. 

The  opinion  was  written  by  Mr.  Justice  Shenk  of  the  state  supreme 
court,  and  when  I  read  it  I  saw  that  the  language  used  in  describing 
the  limit  was  that  the  sea  boundary  of  this  state  was  a  line  three 
miles  west  of  a  line  drawn  between  the  two  points. 

That  language  bothered  me  because  it,  by  implication,  at  least, 
foreclosed  any  later  argument  that  the  true  boundary  was  even  farther 
west.   So  I  went  down  to  see  the  justice  in  his  chambers  as  soon  as 
I  read  this,  and  asked  him  whether  he  or  the  court  had  had  any  inten 
tion  of  foreclosing  an  argument  that  under  the  Treaty  of  Guadalupe 
Hidalgo  the  line  might  go  way  around  the  outside  of  the  islands,  or 
whether  under  the  theory  of  Spanish  history  and  the  Nootka  Sound 
Convention  it  might  extend  even  farther  west  than  that. 

He  said  no,  they  had  had  no  intention  at  all  of  foreclosing  the 
state  from  making  any  such  argument  as  that,  because  it  hadn't  been 
presented  and  the  argument  hadn't  been  considered.   So  he  modified 
his  opinion  by  inserting  the  words  "at  least" — that  the  jurisdic- 
tional  boundary  was  "at  least"  as  far  west  as  the  line  described  in 
the  opinion. 

Following  this  decision,  we  realized  that  Cornero  knew  the  case 
was  lost  and  we  were  concerned  about  that  gambling  equipment,  lest 
he  try  to  remove  it  from  the  ship.  So  Oscar  Jahnsen  and  others  went 
on  board  the  Rex.   It  wasn't  any  full-scale  raid,  because  there  were 
only  a  few  people  on  it,  the  captain  and  just  enough  of  a  crew  to 
keep  the  Rex  at  sea.   I  think  they  had  something  of  an  argument 
trying  to  get  on  board,  but  they  could  do  it  and  did.   I  went  out 
there,  too,  not  at  the  time  they  went  but  later,  and  stayed  on  board 
overnight  for  some  reason;  I  can't  remember  what.   The  equipment  was 
taken  off  and  eventually  destroyed.   It  was  right  about  that  time 
that  Cornero  went  to  the  attorney  general's  office  and  agreed  to  give 
up  the  fight,  as  I  have  previously  related. 


193 


Stein:   I  think  you  mentioned  after  we  turned  the  tape  off  last  time  that  that 

conference  between  Warren  and  Cornero's  attorney,  Jerry  Giesler, 

occurred  just  after  the  supreme  court  made  the  decision  on  the  Adams 
case. 

Olney:   I  think  that's  correct.   I  don't  have  anything  that  fixes  the  date  of 
that  conference,  but  that's  my  recollection,  that  it  was  right  after 
the  supreme  court  decision. 


An  Attempt  to  Revive  the  Gambling  Ships 


Olney:   After  the  war  there  was  another  curious  resumption  on  Tony's  part  of 
gambling  ship  activity.   By  this  time  Earl  Warren  was  governor,  of 
course.   I  had  left  the  marine  corps  and  was  in  private  practice  in 
San  Francisco.   Cornero  with  his  usual  flair  for  publicity  announced 
that  he  was  going  to  resume  operating  a  gambling  ship  and  he  had  out 
fitted  one  very  much  like  the  Rex,  a  similar  size  and  everything  else, 
but  this  one  was  named  the  S.S.  Lux. 

Now,  the  governor  felt  this  was  a  direct  challenge,  almost  a  per 
sonal  challenge,  and  he  made  publicly  and  privately  many  statements 
indicating  that  no  matter  what  it  took,  he  was  going  to  see  that  that 
ship  did  not  operate.   But  Tony  wasn't  daunted  by  any  threats  of  that 
kind.   Robert  Kenny,  the  California  attorney  general,  at  the  time  was 
at  the  trials  of  the  war  criminals  in  Nuremberg.   Fred  Howser  was 
district  attorney  of  Los  Angeles  County  and  he  had  as  his  chief 
assistant  a  lawyer  from  Long  Beach — Stratton  was  his  name — a  very 
able  lawyer,  indeed.   Stratton  had  been  counsel  for  the  owners  of  the 
Tango  at  the  time  that  I  had  raided  it .   He  was  the  man  who  had  come 
around  in  the  motorboat  to  look  us  over  when  we  were  on  board. 

Howser  claimed  that  he  didn't  know  how  to  go  about  preventing  Tony 
from  putting  his  ship  back  in  operation.   Stratton  called  me  up  and 
asked  me  if  I  would  accept  an  appointment  as  special  assistant  to 
Howser  to  try  to  keep  the  Lux  from  operating.   I  told  him  that  it 
wasn't  necessary  at  all  for  them  to  get  me  or  anyone  else  as  a  special 
assistant,  that  any  lawyer  that  he  had  in  the  district  attorney's 
office  could  do  it  single-handed,  because  in  the  settlement  which  we 
had  made  with  Cornero  in  1939,  he  had  consented  to  a  permanent  injunc 
tion  against  himself,  not  only  against  operating  the  Rex,  but  against 
operating  any  kind  of  a  gambling  ship  at  any  time  off  the  California 
coast.   All  that  was  needed  was  to  issue  a  citation  to  come  into  court 
and  show  cause  why  he  shouldn't  be  punished  for  contempt  for  violating 
the  injunction  if  he  went  ahead.   It  didn't  require  any  raid  or  any 
special  counsel. 


194 


Olney:   Well,  nothing  was  done.   No  citation  was  issued.   The  ship  was  towed 
out  to  anchorage  at  sea  and  all  the  preparations  were  made  to  start 
operations  again.   Then,  I  understand,  what  occurred  was  that  Governor 
Warren  called  up  President  Truman  on  the  telephone  and  told  him  about 
this.   Warren  called  the  president's  attention  to  the  fact  that  the 
Lux  was  licensed  by  the  United  States  as  a  sea-going  vessel  to  engage 
in  coast-wise  trade,  but  that  it  was  not  equipped  for  voyages  since  it 
had  no  power  of  its  own;  it  was  only  a  barge.   It  was  not  engaged  in 
coast-wide  trade  and  couldn't  engage  in  anything  coast-wise.   It  was 
only  a  gambling  barge. 

President  Truman  assured  him  that  appropriate  action  would  be  taken 
and  taken  at  once.   Shortly  afterward  the  governor  got  a  phone  call 
from  the  United  States  Attorney  General,  who  at  that  time  was  Tom 
Clark.   The  attorney  general  also  assured  the  governor  that  action 
would  be  taken  very  promptly,  which  it  was. 

The  United  States  Attorney  in  Southern  California  at  that  time  was 
James  Carter,  and  the  Department  of  Justice  instructed  Carter  to  pro 
ceed  at  once  to  bring  forfeiture  proceedings  against  the  Lux  because 
it  had  departed  from  the  purpose  of  its  license  to  engage  in  coast 
wise  trade.   The  officers  went  out  there  and  went  on  board  and  for 
feited  the  ship  and  had  it  towed  in,  and  that  was  the  end  of  that 
operation. 

Stein:  One  of  the  other  things  we  talked  about  briefly  last  week  was  the 
question  of  offshore  oil  rights  and  the  three-mile  limit.  Do  you 
want  to  comment  briefly  on  that? 

Olney:  Well,  you  expressed  an  interest  in  it.   I  looked  at  a  file  that  I 

had.   You  know,  there  is  uncertainty  about  state  boundary  matters  in 
California.   There  are  some  very  curious  things.   So  I  stuck  papers 
relating  to  these  uncertainties  about  boundaries  in  a  file.   I  had 
filed  there  a  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  which  was  the  last  one 
that  had  to  do  with  those  oil  lands. 

The  case  is  entitled  U.S.  v.  California  and  was  decided  May  17, 
1965.   The  majority  opinion  was  written  by  Mr.  Justice  Harlan  and  the 
dissent  by  Mr.  Justice  Black.   Mr.  Justice  Black  thought  that  under 
the  Submerged  Lands  Act  of  1953,  California  should  be  entitled  to 
prove  that  all  the  waters  between  her  offshore  islands  and  the  main 
land  were  within  her  historic  boundaries  and  hence  were  inland  waters 
with  ownership  of  the  submerged  lands  in  the  state.   The  majority  held 
the  Submerged  Lands  Act  foreclosed  such  a  hearing  and  established 
ownership  of  the  submerged  lands  in  the  United  States. 

Mr.  Justice  Black's  opinion  is  interesting  to  me  because  he  recites 
some  of  the  evidence  supporting  California's  claim  of  "historic  bound 
aries"  but  fails  to  mention  the  extent  of  Spanish  and  Mexican  title, 
as  recognized  and  limited  by  the  Nootka  Sound  Compact,  a  title  to 
which  the  State  of  California  succeeded. 


195 


IX  WARTIME  EXPERIENCE  IN  THE  OFFICES  OF  THE  DISTRICT  ATTORNEY  OF 

ALAMEDA  COUNTY  AND  THE  ATTORNEY  GENERAL  OF  CALIFORNIA  -  EXCLUSION 
OF  THE  JAPANESE  FROM  CALIFORNIA 

[Interview  7:  January  31,  1972]* 


Olney:   The  decade  ending  in  1939  with  the  outbreak  of  war  in  Europe  was  for 
me  a  period  of  gradually  changing  attitude  toward  military  service. 
The  commencement  of  open  warfare  in  1939  was  followed  by  a  series  of 
rude  surprises  culminating  with  increasingly  severe  shocks  in  1941 
and  1942  as  the  United  States  suffered  one  military  disaster  after 
another. 

During  the  1930s  no  one  in  the  office  of  the  district  attorney  or 
the  attorney  general  possessed  any  crystal  ball  that  would  foretell 
the  future  and  during  this  period  none  of  us  had  any  greater  awareness 
of  the  approach  and  imminence  of  war  than  people  generally.   In  1930 
and  '31  a  number  of  the  lawyers  in  the  district  attorney's  office  were 
supplementing  their  very  meager  salaries  by  summer  service  in  the 
Officers'  Training  Camps  or  in  the  National  Guard.   Among  these  was 
Earl  Warren  himself  as  well  as  Dick  Chamberlain,  who  at  that  time  was 


Editor's  note:   In  reviewing  the  transcript  of  his  interview  about 
the  Japanese- American  relocation,  Mr.  Olney  substituted  this  account, 
which  offers  more  detail  and  insight  than  did  the  original  tape 
recordings. 

In  a  July  19-20,  1978  interview  with  writer  Dori  Dressander,  Mr. 
Olney  commented,  "I  hadn't  looked  at  [this  section  on  the  Japanese- 
Americans]  for  months,  and  I  was  under  the  impression  that  it  was  in 
pretty  bad  shape.   But  when  I  read  it  over,  I  changed  my  mind.   I 
think  it's  in  very  good  shape,  excepting  it  needs  a  concluding  para 
graph  or  two." 


196 


Olney :   a  deputy  district  attorney.   I  remember  this  particularly  because  when 
they  went  to  the  summer  OTC  camp,  Dick  held  the  higher  military  rank 
and  Earl  Warren,  who  was  normally  his  boss,  served  as  Dick's  subor 
dinate.   This  service  was  no  indication  of  a  belief  that  war  was 
approaching,  nor  did  it  indicate  any  special  fondness  for  the  army. 
To  the  best  of  my  belief,  it  was  motivated  entirely  by  the  desire  to 
earn  the  pay. 

In  my  own  case,  I  had  a  strong  aversion  for  the  military  and  was 
quite  unwilling  to  serve  for  any  amount  of  money.   This  aversion  goes 
back  to  my  college  days  when  two  years  of  training  in  the  ROTC  was 
compulsory  at  the  University  of  California.   For  two  years  I  was 
compelled  to  drill  twice  a  week  as  a  member  of  a  machine  gun  squad, 
being  required  to  help  carry  a  part  of  the  heavy  tripod  which  served 
as  a  base  for  our  water-cooled  machine  gun.   My  government  issue 
uniform  was  heavy  wool,  olive  drab  in  color,  very  scratchy,  and  with 
a  high  tight  collar  around  the  neck.   It  was  unsightly  and  uncomfort 
able  and  contributed  strongly,  I  am  sure,  to  my  hearty  dislike  for 
the  army  or  the  service  in  any  form. 

Pacifism  now  became  widespread.   We  saw  such  anti-war  moving 
pictures  as  The  Big  Parade,  What  Price  Glory,  and  The  Four  Horsemen 
of  the  Apocalypse,  and  we  read  such  books  as  Farewell  to  Arms  and 
All  Quiet  on  the  Western  Front,  which  were  produced  as  moving  pictures 
as  well.   It  was  at  this  time  that  a  large  number  of  students  at 
Oxford  University  in  England  took  an  oath  together  that  never  under 
any  circumstances  would  they  take  up  arms  in  the  defense  of  God  or 
king.   These  were  the  same  men  who  eventually  were  to  fight  for  long 
years,  with  great  gallantry  and  dogged  determination,  against  what 
seemed  to  be  almost  hopeless  odds,  in  defense  of  God,  king,  and  all 
the  rest  of  us.   The  Oxford  oath  got  world-wide  publicity  and  I  found 
myself  very  much  in  sympathy  with  it.   I  did  not  actually  take  the 
Oxford  oath,  but  I  can  recall  only  too  well  expounding  to  my  wife,  my 
friends,  and  my  associates,  my  own  determination  never,  never  to  go 
to  war  in  defense  of  anything.   I  considered  myself  a  convinced 
pacifist.   Eric  Sevareid,  in  his  autobiography  entitled  Not  So  Wild 
A  Dream,  describes  the  psychology  of  the  time  very  well  as  he  exper 
ienced  it  at  the  University  of  Minnesota.   It  was  the  same  with  us 
in  Berkeley  both  on  and  off  the  campus. 

I  cannot  recall  when  my  own  ideas  about  participating  in  war  began 
to  change.   It  was  so  gradual  that  I  was  not  aware  that  my  thinking 
was  becoming  different.   I  was  not  particularly  alarmed  by  Mussolini's 
seizure  of  power  in  Italy  and  the  emergence  of  fascism  as  a  doctrine 
and  system  of  government.   When  I  accompanied  my  father,  mother,  and 
sister  to  Italy  in  the  summer  of  1924,  Mussolini  was  already  II  Duce. 
We  saw  his  black-shirted  ruffians  everywhere,  but  on  the  surface  every 
thing  was  quiet  and  peaceful  and  the  trains  did  run  on  time.   However, 
while  we  were  there,  the  Italian  newspapers  were  full  of  the  kidnaping 


197 


Olney:   and  murder  of  the  anti-fascist  political  leader  Matteotti  and  the 
suspicion  was  being  voiced  in  the  press  that  he  had  been  killed  on 
order  of  the  fascist  party  and  probably  on  the  order  of  Mussolini 
himself.  We  did  not  like  the  look,  sound,  or  smell  of  this,  but 
we  did  not  see  that  it  portended  anything  for  us. 

When  Hitler  came  to  power  in  January,  1933  and  immediately  began 
the  rearmament  of  the  German  Reich,  we  all  believed  it  showed  a 
serious  weakness  and  indecision  on  the  part  of  France,  England,  and 
all  the  signatories  to  the  Versailles  Treaty.   But  I,  at  least,  did 
not  imagine  that  my  country  would  ever  be  involved  in  the  conse 
quences. 

Hitler's  anti-Semitism  was  a  great  puzzle  to  me  at  first.  I 
couldn't  understand  it.   I  knew  that  there  were  some  people  who 
did  not  like  Jews,  just  as  I  knew  that  there  were  some  who  did  not 
like  Irish,  and  others  who  did  not  like  Russians,  or  Negroes,  and 
some  who  did  not  like  the  English,  but  I  had  never  experienced  or 
imagined  the  virulent  nature  of  Nazi  anti-Semitism.   At  first  I  was 
very  skeptical;  I  thought  the  news  reports  from  Germany  must  be 
grossly  exaggerated  and  that  a  civilized  people  would  never  behave 
that  way. 

My  own  naivete  on  this  subject  led  me  into  conduct  towards  some 
of  my  own  friends  which  was  almost  unforgivable,  although  they  did 
forgive  me.   Two  of  the  lawyers  in  the  district  attorney's  office 
were  Jewish,  Leonard  Meltzer  and  Harry  Miller.   I  worked  on  problems 
and  tried  cases  with  them  and  they  were  my  associates  and  friends. 
In  the  telephone  room  of  the  office  was  a  spindle  used  by  the  law 
yers  for  leaving  notes  and  messages  for  one  another.  When  the 
reports  of  anti-Semitism  began  emerging  from  Germany,  I  took  to 
decorating  my  notes  for  Harry  and  Leonard,  which  I  would  leave  on 
the  spindle,  with  penciled  swastikas.   That  was  supposed  to  be  a 
joke. 

Finally  news  came  from  Germany  of  the  notorious  Night  of  Glass 
when  the  Nazi  storm troopers  broke  the  windows  in  every  Jewish  shop 
and  desecrated  every  synagogue  in  the  country.   After  reading  about 
this,  I  went  to  see  Leonard  Meltzer  in  his  office.   I  said  to  him, 
"Leonard,  what  is  going  on  in  Germany?  Why  do  the  Germans  hate  the 
Jews  so  much?   Is  the  treatment  of  Jews  really  as  bad  in  Germany  as 
the  papers  say?"  His  answer  was,  "It  is  worse  than  the  papers  say. 
I  cannot  tell  you  why  the  Jews  are  so  hated  in  Germany.   I  know 
nothing  that  would  justify  it.   I  only  know  that  anti-Semitism  has 
a  long  and  bloody  history  in  Europe  and  a  long  history  in  this 
country  too." 


198 


Olney:   I  apologized  to  Leonard  and  to  Harry  Miller  for  my  swastikas  and 
they  forgave  me  because  they  knew  how  abysmally  ignorant  I  was  on 
the  subject  of  the  Nazis  and  anti-Semitism  in  general.   There  were, 
I  suppose,  in  America  millions  of  people  like  me.   It  was  very  hard 
for  us  to  recognize  on  first  sight  the  evil  and  the  danger  in  anti- 
Semitism  and  fascism. 

I  think  that  one  reason  that  many  of  us  like  myself  were  slow  in 
recognizing  the  danger  from  the  Nazis  and  the  fascists  was  that  for 
years  such  international  apprehensions  as  we  had  had  been  focused  on 
the  communists.  We  were  well  aware  of  the  nature  of  communist 
tyranny,  their  objective  of  world  revolution,  and  their  constant 
effort  to  impede  and  break  down  democratic  governments.   The  Nazis 
and  fascists  were  strongly  anti-communist  and  this  inclined  us  to 
the  fatuous  belief  that  there  must  be  something  good  about  them  and 
led  us  to  discount,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  poisonous  nature  of 
their  doctrines  and  theories. 

The  1930s  brought  many  disturbing  developments.   In  1935  Mussolini 
made  a  totally  unprovoked,  unjustified  attack  on  Abyssinia  resulting 
in  the  military  conquest  of  that  country.   The  League  of  Nations  was 
quite  unable  to  invoke  any  effective  sanctions  against  Italy.   In 
1936  Hitler  suddenly  reoccupied  the  Rhineland  in  flagrant  and  open 
violation  of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  with  a  secretly  organized, 
heavily  armed  army,  and  neither  the  League  of  Nations  nor  France  nor 
Britain  was  able  to  take  any  effective  action  against  him.   In  1936 
when  civil  war  broke  out  in  Spain,  the  Russians,  Germans,  and  Ital 
ians  all  intervened  with  military  advisers,  armaments,  and  troops, 
and  the  struggle  seemed  to  be  a  rehearsal  for  an  international  war 
in  the  future.   In  1938  Hitler  moved  his  armies  into  Austria  and 
took  over  the  country  without  resistance  and  a  little  later  he  gave 
Czechoslovakia  the  same  treatment. 

Probably  the  biggest  surprise  of  the  1930s  was  on  August  23,  1939 
when  the  two  great  dictatorships,  communist  Russia  and  Nazi  Germany, 
who  had  been  at  enmity  for  so  long,  suddenly  signed  a  non-aggression 
pact.  It  was  the  signal  for  a  common  attack  on  Poland.  Hitler 
attacked  Poland  on  September  1st  and  Stalin  a  few  days  later.   Poland 
was  crushed  and  divided  between  the  two  dictators.   Stalin,  taking 
advantage  of  the  situation,  ordered  the  Red  Army  to  overrun  Estonia, 
Latvia,  and  Lithuania,  all  three  quickly  falling  under  communist 
dictatorship  and  Russian  occupation.   Tyranny  was  spreading  world 
wide  in  the  1930s  under  the  names  of  communism,  fascism,  national 
socialism,  and  in  the  Orient  under  the  strange  name  of  the  East 
Asia  Co-Prosperity  Sphere. 

In  the  United  States,  organizations  as  well  as  individuals 
appeared  during  the  1930s  in  support  of  each  one  of  these  tyrannies. 
Of  these  groups,  the  communists  were  the  oldest,  the  most  numerous, 


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199 


Olney:    the  best  organized,  and  probably  the  most  active.   Their  policies 

and  programs  in  the  United  States  were  taken  from  the  Comintern  and 
directed  for  the  most  part  by  Stalinist  organizations  in  Moscow 
such  as  the  OGPU. 

The  Italian  fascists  also  had  their  organizations  in  the  United 
States.   They  included  such  organizations  as  OARA  in  U.S.,  the 
Fascist  League  of  North  America,  Combattenti  U.S.A.,  Woman's 
Auxiliary,  Lictor  Federation,  American  Union  of  Fascists,  the  Fasci, 
the  Fascist  Society  of  Italians  Abroad  in  U.S.,  the  Dante  Alighieri 
Society  in  U.S.,  the  National  United  Italian  Associations,  Council 
of  Marconi,  Gruppo  Giovanile,  Mario  Morgantini  Circle,  Dopolavoro, 
and  the  Italian  Chamber  of  Commerce.  These  were  all  more  or  less 
concealed  fascist  propaganda  agencies  active  in  California  and  else 
where  . 

Early  in  the  1930s  the  Nazis  set  up  in  the  United  States  an 
organization  called  the  Friends  of  New  Germany  which  later  on  became 
the  German-American  Bund.   This  was  a  paramilitary  organization 
addicted  to  uniforms,  arm  salutes,  and  the  Nazi  greeting  of  "Heil 
Hitler."   It  was  organized  and  disciplined  like  an  army.   Its 
national  Fuehrer  was  one  Fritz  Kuhn,  who  was  succeeded  in  office  by 
Wilhelm  Kunze.   The  organization  had  a  national  headquarters  in  New 
York  with  regional  headquarters  in  other  parts  of  the  country,  each 
of  which  was  known  locally  as  the  "Deutsches  Haus."   These  head 
quarters  were  in  imitation  of  the  Brown  House  of  Munich,  which  was 
Adolf  Hitler's  party  headquarters.   Eleven  western  states  comprised 
the  Far  Western  Division  of  the  Bund,  which  was  controlled  by  a 
Gauleiter,  one  Hermann  Max  Schwinn,  from  the  Deutsches  Haus  in  Los 
Angeles. 

The  German- American  Bunds  ran  summer  camps  where  they  engaged  in 
military  drill  and  maneuvers.   They  were  in  effect  an  auxiliary  to 
the  National  Socialist  party  and  government  of  Germany.   They  glor 
ified  the  leadership  principle  and  one-man  government  and  they  spat 
upon  the  principles  of  democracy  and  ridiculed  democratic  leadership 
as  weak  and  corrupt.   In  addition,  the  Nazis  instituted  a  whole  net 
work  of  undercover  operations  designed  to  penetrate  secretly  the 
economic,  social,  and  political  institutions  of  the  United  States. 
The  German- American  Vocational  League,  a  very  old  organization,  is 
one  whose  name  I  can  remember  which  was  used  for  these  purposes. 
Others  were  I.G.  Farben,  VPA  Organizations  Abroad,  Hitler  Youth  in 
U.S.A.,  and  Winter  Help  Abroad. 

During  the  1930s  we  also  had  a  spate  in  California  of  home-grown 
organizations  seeking  the  establishment  of  dictatorship  in  one  form 
or  another  in  our  own  country.   This  includes,  of  .course,  all  of  the 
communist  organizations,  since  the  establishment  of  a  dictatorship 


200 


Olney:    is  a  fundamental  precept  of  Marxist-Leninism.   But  it  also  includes 
such  organizations  as  the  Ku  Klux  Klan,  The  United  Men  and  Women  of 
America,  The  National  Patriots,  The  League  to  Save  America  First, 
The  American  Guards,  The  Silver  Shirts,  The  National  Copperheads  of 
America,  The  Militant  Christian  Patriots,  The  American  White  Guards, 
and  The  Friends  of  Progress,  to  list  only  a  few.   These  organiza 
tions  were  not  merely  engaged  in  supporting  communism  or  fascism 
or  Nazism  abroad,  but  were  also  advocating  either  the  establishment 
in  the  United  States  of  the  dictatorship  of  the  proletariat  or  the 
leadership  principles  of  Hitler  and  Mussolini. 

The  appearance  in  our  own  country  of  anti-democratic  organiza 
tions  espousing  the  principles  of  dictatorship  and  military  organ 
ization  was  not  a  matter  of  great  concern  to  most  Americans.   In 
their  origin  and  in  their  principles  these  organizations  were  so 
alien  to  American  history,  tradition,  and  temperament  that  it  seemed 
most  unlikely  to  us  that  any  of  them  could  ever  rise  to  power  or 
even  influence  in  the  United  States.  Most  of  us  thought  their 
leadership  stupid,  their  principles  unacceptable,  and  their  methods 
of  secrecy  and  deception  repulsive.   Until  his  assassination  many 
of  us  were  much  more  concerned  about  the  demagoguery  of  Huey  Long 
and  the  virtual  dictatorship  he  had  established  in  Louisiana  and 
which  he  obviously  intended  to  spread  over  the  whole  country  by 
capturing  the  White  House  through  election. 

Of  course,  the  war  in  Europe  from  its  beginnings  in  -1939  had  been 
a  matter  of  grave  concern  to  people  in  the  United  States.   Virtually 
all  of  us  hoped  and  wished  that  American  involvement  could  be  avoided, 
But  as  time  went  on,  the  menace  to  the  very  esistence  of  the  United 
States  and  other  democratic  countries  posed  by  the  dictatorships  of 
Nazi  Germany,  fascist  Italy,  imperial  Japan,  and  communist  Russia 
became  plainer  and  plainer.   The  possibility  of  American  involvement 
became  more  probable  as  time  went  on.   Somewhere  along  in  this 
period  I  came  to  the  realization  that  my  own  attitude  towards  the 
defense  of  the  United  States  had  changed.   I  knew  that  if  our 
country  was  attacked  or  its  existence  seriously  endangered,  I  would 
favor  the  country  going  to  war  and  would  be  willing  to  join  the 
armed  forces  myself  if  needed.   As  I  thought  of  the  1920s  and  the 
early  1930s,  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  must  have  been  living  in  another 
world.   I  no  longer  considered  myself  a  pacifist. 

The  situation  facing  the  United  States  at  the  beginning  of  the 
year  1941  was  gloomy  indeed.   In  California  we  knew  that  if  war 
came,  we  would  be  as  much  involved  as  any  other  part  of  the  country. 
The  dictatorships  seemed  to  be  successful  almost  everywhere.   Nazi 
Germany  and  Soviet  Russia  acting  together  had  destroyed  and  absorbed 
all  of  Poland.   The  Russians  had  also  gobbled  the  independent 
countries  of  Latvia,  Estonia,  and  Lithuania.   In  a  lightning 
campaign  of  hardly  more  than  six  weeks,  Hitler  had  destroyed  the 


201 


Olney:   French  army,  which  for  decades  had  been  considered  the  most  powerful 
military  force  in  Europe.  France  was  occupied  and  under  the  heel  of 
Nazi  conquerors.   The  Nazis  had  overrun  Holland  and  Belgium  and 
occupied  Denmark  and  Norway.   In  Scandinavia,  only  Sweden  was  left 
with  any  independence  and  she,  surrounded  by  Nazi  occupied  territory, 
was  busily  engaged  in  supplying  iron  ore  and  steel  for  the  Nazi  war 
machine . 

Britain  alone  was  holding  out  against  the  dictators.  But  she  was 
in  a  desperate  plight.  The  British  army  had  gone  down  to  defeat 
along  with  the  French  in  the  debacle  on  the  Continent,  and  while  an 
amazing  number  of  British  soldiers  had  been  brought  home  in  a 
spectacular  evacuation  from  Dunkirk,  all  of  their  guns,  ammunition, 
and  other  military  equipment  had  been  lost  in  the  process.   Except 
ing  for  the  Royal  Navy  and  the  Royal  Air  Force,  Britain  at  the 
beginning  of  1941  was  almost  unarmed  and  her  cities  and  industries 
were  being  subjected  to  a  terrible  bombardment  from  the  air  by  the 
Nazi  Luftwaffe.  The  very  lifelines  of  the  British  Isles  were  being 
cut  by  the  Nazi  submarine  warfare,  which  by  the  beginning  of  the 
year  1941  had  been  accelerated  to  a  point  where  British  resistance 
must  collapse  if  ship  sinkings  continued  at  the  rate  achieved  by  the 
U-boats . 

This  desperate  situation  had  caused  President  Roosevelt  in  his 
State  of  the  Union  message  to  Congress  in  January,  1941  to  ask  for 
"lend  lease"  legislation  to  permit  the  transfer  of  American  destroy 
ers  to  Britain  for  use  in  her  defense  against  German  submarines. 
The  legislation  was  passed,  but  not  without  a  fierce  battle  in  the 
Congress.  The  president  also  asked  Congress  for  greatly  increased 
new  appropriations  to  manufacture  additional  munitions  and  war 
supplies  to  be  turned  over  to  those  nations  engaged  in  actual  war 
with  the  aggressor  powers.   America  would  be,  he  declared,  the 
"arsenal  of  democracy".   These  actions  by  our  government  were 
sufficient  to  have  justified  a  declaration  of  war  by  the  Nazis. 
They  certainly  made  our  eventual  involvement  in  the  war  in  Europe 
ever  more  probable. 

The  Axis  Powers,  especially  the  Nazis,  had  developed  subversion, 
espionage,  and  sabotage  into  an  effective  adjunct  to  warfare.  This 
became  the  subject  of  examination  and  study  in  the  attorney  general's 
office  during  the  last  part  of  1940  and  all  of  1941.   The  Germans  had 
the  assistance  of  an  organized  party  of  traitors  in  nearly  every 
country  they  attacked.   In  Austria  they  had  Seyss-Inquart  and  his 
Austrian  Nazi  party.   In  Czechoslovakia  they  had  Konrad  Henlein  and 
the  Sudeten  German  party.   In  Norway  it  was  Vidkun  Quisling  and  his 
Norwegian  National  Union.   And  in  France  there  were  a  number  of 
political  parties  advocating  fascism  and  numerous  traitors,  the  out 
standing  one  being  Pierre  Laval,  who-  became  second  in  importance  in 


202 


Olney:    the  Vichy  regime  which  occupied  France  under  Nazi  instruction  and 
domination.   These  traitors  and  their  followers  had  developed 
deceit,  subversion,  espionage,  and  sabotage  to  a  high  point.   This 
was  recognized  as  an  innovation  in  warfare  deserving  of  study  and 
comprehension  for  an  adequate  American  civilian  defense.   Our 
inquiries  and  studies  of  this  matter  did  not  involve,  however,  any 
investigation  of  persons,  organizations,  or  movements  because  that 
was  being  done  adequately  by  the  Federal  Bureau  of  Investigation 
and  any  parallel  effort  on  our  part  might  well  interfere  with  their 
work. 

Of  course,  the  national  government  was  fully  alert  to  the  growing 
danger  of  our  involvement  in  war.   The  administration  sponsored  a 
plan  for  civilian  defense  to  be  implemented  and  carried  out  by  state 
and  local  government  throughout  the  nation.   The  Federal  Civilian 
Defense  Program  was  developed  with  the  war  in  Europe  very  much  in 
mind.   It  was  designed  to  meet  the  problems  of  a  civilian  population 
undergoing  aerial  and  artillery  bombardment  and  attacks  by  tanks  and 
other  ground  forces. 

It  was  against  the  background  of  these  events  that  Attorney 
General  Earl  Warren  began  the  organization  of  the  law  enforcement 
officers  of  the  state  to  meet  the  new  and  additional  responsibilities 
which  would  fall  upon  them  in  the  event  of  our  becoming  involved  in 
war.   A  quite  comprehensive  study  was  made  of  the  problems  that  had 
arisen  in  France  and  other  countries  from  attacking  armies  and 
especially  the  problem  of  the  civilian  government  in  Britain  arising 
from  the  aerial  bombardment  of  the  cities.   A  year  or  two  earlier, 
because  of  the  need  for  more  effective  law  enforcement  against 
organized  crime,  the  attorney  general  had  divided  the  state  into 
several  regions  in  each  of  which  there  had  been  established  an  organ 
ization  of  the  chiefs  of  police,  the  sheriffs,  and  the  district 
attorneys.   Each  region  held  regularly  scheduled  meetings  and  the 
attorney  general  made  a  practice  of  attending  them  in  person.   In 
formation  was  exchanged,  ideas  for  better  crime  prevention  were 
discussed,  and  enforcement  projects  were  planned,  developed,  and 
reported.   The  fire  chiefs  were  added  to  these  regional  organizations 
following  the  incendiary  bombings  of  British  cities  because  everyone 
realized  the  unusual  danger  from  fire  in  California  with  its  long, 
dry  seasons  and  inflammable  cities  and  forests.   These  regional 
organizations  had  not  been  created  for  any  wartime  purpose,  but  they 
could  and  did  function  very  effectively  as  an  organization  for  civil 
defense  when  the  war  came. 

During  the  late  1930s  and  1940  and  '41,  the  danger  to  the  United 
States  and  all  the  western  democracies  from  the  military  power  and 
success  of  the  Nazis  had  become  so  overwhelming  and  so  immediate 
that  it  completely  overshadowed  in  our  minds  any  possible  danger 


203 


Olney:    from  Japan.   Japan  had  been  our  ally  in  World  War  I,  although  her 
contribution  had  been  only  to  seize  the  German-held  islands  in  the 
Pacific.   It  was  mildly  disturbing  to  us  to  learn  that  when  these 
same  islands  were  put  under  Japanese  jurisdiction  by  a  mandate  of 
the  League  of  Nations,  Japan  immediately  lowered  a  curtain  of 
secrecy  with  strong  indications  coming  from  beneath  the  curtain 
that  the  islands  were  being  heavily  fortified.   It  was  disturbing 
too  to  read  about  the  ever  growing  dominance  of  the  military  over 
the  civilian  government  in  Japan.  Civilian  ministers  were  being 
assassinated  with  increasing  frequency  by  organizations  of  military 
zealots.   One  such  group  actually  tried  to  kidnap  the  emperor 
because  he  favored  the  more  moderate  elements  in  the  Japanese 
government . 

It  became  evident  that  in  foreign  affairs  the  Japanese  military 
had  become  uncontrollable.   They  provoked  incidents  which  involved 
the  country  in  large-scale  military  operations  without  the  consent 
of  or  even  against  the  orders  of  the  civilian  government.   In  1931 
the  Japanese  army  without  any  justification  or  authorization  from 
the  Japanese  government  occupied  the  city  of  Mukden,  the  capital 
of  Manchuria,  and  also  included  in  their  occupation  the  whole  zone 
of  the  Manchurian  railway.   In  1932  the  Japanese  army  secured  control 
of  all  of  Manchuria  by  the  creation  of  the  puppet  state  of  Manchukuo. 
That  same  year  the  Japanese  army  also  landed  in  Shanghai  and  here 
for  the  first  time  they  encountered  heavy  resistance  from  the 
Chinese.   At  the  request  of  the  Chinese  government,  the  League  of 
Nations  appointed  a  commission  to  investigate  on  the  spot  Japanese 
activities  in  Manchuria.   The  commission  was  an  able  one  and  their 
inquiries  were  thorough.   In  due  course  they  published  their  report, 
which  declared  that  Manchukuo  was  an  artificial  creation  of  the 
Japanese  General  Staff  and  that  the  wishes  of  the  local  population 
had  played  no  part  in  the  formation  of  this  puppet  state.   The 
League  applied  no  sanctions,  however,  so  the  report  had  little 
effect.   Indeed,  in  1933,  in  defiance  of  the  League  of  Nations,  the 
Japanese  army  occupied  and  annexed  the  Chinese  province  of  Jehol. 
These  developments  were  accompanied  by  many  brutal  acts  of  arrogance 
by  the  Japanese  military,  not  only  against  the  Chinese,  but  also 
against  all  westerners  and  non- Japanese  people.   This  course  of 
conduct  naturally  aroused  strong  resentment  in  the  United  States 
and  elsewhere.   On  December  12,  1937  Japanese  naval  aviators 
deliberately  attacked  and  sank  the  U.S.  gunboat  Panay  on  the  Yangtze 
River  and  fired  on  the  British  gunboat  Ladybird  and  then  seized  it. 
But  these  actions  were  immediately  disavowed  by  the  Japanese  govern 
ment  and  apologies  were  made. 

The  Japanese  militarists  finally  became  so  provocative  that  in 
July  of  1940  the  United  States  government  placed  an  embargo  on 
strategic  materials  and  aviation  fuel  which  was  being  sent  to  Japan. 


204 


Olney:   On  September  27,  1940  the  Japanese,  notwithstanding,  signed  in 
Berlin  the  Tri-Partite  Pact  with  Hitler  and  Mussolini.   To  the 
British  and  Americans  this  was  further  evidence  that  Japan  was  no 
better  than  Nazi  Germany  and  fascist  Italy  and  that  the  three 
"gangster  nations"  had  joined  forces  to  conquer  the  world.   The 
United  States  retaliated  immediately  by  adding  scrap  metal  of  every 
kind  to  the  list  of  embargoes  which  had  been  announced  in  July. 
Even  with  all  these  hostile  developments  it  certainly  did  not  occur 
to  me,  and  as  far  as  I  am  aware  to  anyone  else  whom  I  knew,  that  the 
United  States  was  in  any  danger  of  a  declaration  of  war  or  of  a 
military  attack  on  our  territory  by  the  Japanese. 

On  June  22,  1941  Hitler  launched  his  sudden  and  unexpected  attack 
upon  Russia  and  the  communist  dictator,  Stalin,  his  former  associate 
in  the  mutual  security  pact  between  the  Nazis  and  the  communists 
which  had  triggered  the  war  in  1939.   During  the  first  few  hours  the 
Luftwaffe  wiped  out  sixty-six  Soviet  air  fields  and  destroyed  twelve 
hundred  planes  while  ground  forces  swept  forward  capturing  almost 
two  thousand  big  guns,  three  thousand  tanks,  and  two  thousand  truck- 
loads  of  ammunition.   On  July  24,  while  Hitler  was  sweeping  into 
Russia,  encircling  and  capturing  large  communist  armies,  the 
Japanese  forced  an  agreement  from  the  Vichy  French  to  allow  the 
entry  of  Japanese  troops  into  Indochina.  The  American  government 
reacted  immediately  and  strongly.   On  the  night  of  July  26,  President 
Roosevelt  ordered  all  Japanese  assets  in  America  frozen  and  Britain 
and  the.  Netherlands  soon  followed  suit.   As  a  consequence,  all  trade 
between  Japan  and  the  United  States  stopped.   But  the  fact  that  the 
United  States  had  been  Japan's  major  source  of  oil  imports  left 
Japan  in  an  untenable  situation.   It  was  described  in  the  New  York 
Times  as  "the  most  drastic  blow  short  of  war." 

During  the  following  weeks  the  Japanese  sent  a  delegation  to 
Washington  to  negotiate  for  a  lifting  of  the  embargo  and  ostensibly 
to  arrive  at  a  mutual  understanding  that  would  lead  to  the  preser 
vation  of  peace.   These  negotiations  were  adequately  reported  in 
the  local  press,  and  while  they  were  recognized  as  being  crucial, 
an  actual  military  attack  by  Japan  upon  the  United  States  seemed  a 
very  remote  possibility  indeed.   Our  general  state  of  mind  appears 
quite  clearly  from  the  items  in  the  public  press  during  the  week 
before  Pearl  Harbor.   I  have  recently  been  through  the  issues  of 
the  San  Francisco  Chronicle  and  have  listed  characteristic  headlines 
and  items  as  follows : 

December  1,  1941: 

1.  Secession  movement  in  the  Siskiyous  -  meeting  at  Cave 
Junction,  Oregon  -  new  state  to  be  formed  from  Southern 
Oregon  and  Northern  California  counties. 

2.  USC  and  Duke  will  play  in  the  Rose  Bowl  on  New  Year's. 


205 


Olney:      3.   Big  battle  on  Moscow  and  Rostov  fronts. 

4.  British  mop  up  in  Tobruk  -  Rommel  masses  tanks  for 
last  struggle. 

5.  Hull  and  Halafax  exchange  views  on  Japanese  crisis. 

6.  Japan's  cabinet  met  for  short  session  at  home  of 
Prime  Minister  Tojo. 

7    Russia's  Ambassador  Litvinov  arrives  at  Manila. 

8.  7th  Division  United  States  Army  may  soon  be 
motorized. 

9.  Waste  paper  for  Defense  Week  starts. 

10.  Casualty  rate  at  United  States  war  games. 

11.  Claudette  Colbert  in  Skylark  will  start  tomorrow. 

12.  Contributions  by  community  leaders  Adrien  J.  Falk, 
R.B.  Hale,  J.  Paul  St.  Sure,  R.H.  Shainwald,  John  S. 
Watson,  on  the  question  of:   What  abuses  of  its 
rights  or  power  by  organized  lator  are  of  particular 
concern  to  you,  and  how  would  you  remedy  them? 

13.  Carl  Sandburg  -  analysis  and  plea  for  U.S.  unity  to 
combat  espionage. 

14.  Tanforan  opens  full  week  of  charity  racing  tomorrow. 


December  2,  1941: 

1.  Italians  in  headlong  flight  on  Africa  front. 

2.  Nazis  say  they  are  almost  within  sight  of  Moscow. 

3.  Japan  reopens  U.S.  talks  -  continues  to  rush  to 
arms. 

4.  Lawmakers  given  a  "ride"  by  Mankind  United  and 
Arthur  S.  Bell. 

5.  Litvinov  takes  off  from  Manila. 


206 


Olney:      6.   Wiedemann  gets  bust  in  Nanking.   Datelined 

Shanghai,  December  1st:   "The  arrival  in  Nanking 
today  of  Captain  Fritz  Wiedemann,  former  Consul 
General  in  San  Francisco  and  now  Consul  General 
in  Tientsin,  marked  intensification  of  Nazi 
diplomatic  activity  in  Japanese  occupied  China." 

7.  Photo  of  H.M.S.  Arkroyal  sinking  in  the  Mediter 
ranean  on  November  14th. 

8.  War  tension  in  the  Pacific. 

9.  Selective  service  -  delinquents  listed  from  draft 
boards  in  San  Francisco  numbered  76,  86,  and  97. 

10.  250  women  enroll  for  U.S.  defense. 

11.  Puget  Sound  -  San  Francisco  troops  take  to  boats, 
storm  foe. 

12.  America  First  eyes  42  votes. 

13.  British  sink  Nazi  raider  in  South  Atlantic. 

14.  Admiral  Tom  Phillips  appointed  to  command  British 
fleet  in  eastern  waters. 

15.  United  Airlines  advertises  special  flights  to  the 
Rose  Bowl. 

16.  Civilian  defense  -  city  needs  22,000  more  regis 
trants.   10,000  air  raid  wardens  and  12,000 
auxiliary  firemen  are  needed.   Enlistments  are 
running  only  about  100  per  day. 


December  3,  1941: 

1.  Mayor  Gable,  49th  state  leader  and  mayor  of  Port 
Orford,  Oregon,  dies. 

2.  Assembly  committee  holds  hearing  on  parole  of  Earl 
King,  Ernest  Ramsey,  and  Frank  Conner  (the  ship 
murderers)  -  Stevens,  a  member  of  the  Board  of 
Parole,  says,  "It  was  greased."  Earl  Warren  is 

to  testify  tomorrow. 

«• 

3.  Soviet  says  victory  at  Rostov  is  complete. 

4.  Why  troops  in  Indochina?   FDR  asks  Tokyo. 


207 


Olney:      5.   Nazis  break  out  of  British  encirclement  in  the 
desert. 

6.  Huge  plot  to  assassinate  Duce  foiled  as  reported 
from  Rome. 

7.  Two  battleships,  the  new  35,000-ton  Prince  of 
Wales ,  one  of  the  most  powerful  battleships  in 
the  world,  and  an  unidentified  capital  ship, 
together  with  a  large  flotilla  of  other  ships, 
arrived  in  Singapore. 

8.  War  alert  -  the  entire  Far  East  is  on  a  war 
footing  -  the  next  move  is  up  to  Japan. 

9.  Litvinov  will  arrive  in  San  Francisco  on 
Saturday. 

10.  America  First  plans  for  the  1942  elections. 

11.  Civilian  defense  -  here  is  a  chance  to  become  a 
fireman. 

12.  Charity  day  at  Tanforan  tomorrow. 

13.  Smitty  Allen,  the  celebrated  driver  of  dog  teams 
in  Alaska,  has  died. 


December  4,  1941: 

1.  House  passes  drastic  anti-strike  bill. 

2.  Warren  calls  the  three  paroles  of  the  ship 
murderers  a  "blow  to  the  law"  in  his  testi 
mony  before  the  committee. 

3.  Litvinov  lands  at  Midway  Island. 

4.  Hull  -  Japan  talks  have  led  nowhere. 

5 .  U.S.  arms  Turkey . 

6.  Nazis  reported  fleeing  Marinpol  in  disorder. 

7.  Libya  battle  is  in  a  lull  -  desert  armies 
reorganize  -  Nazis  have  the  edge. 

8.  Dr.  Alexis  Carrel  will  do  research  for  Vichy. 


208 


Olney:      9.   Willkie  will  tour  Australia. 

10.  Aircraft  report  -  that  50,000  a  year  goal  is  very 
near  accomplishment. 

11.  Inefficiency  and  graft  block  the  Burma  Road,  but  a 
lot  of  stuff  gets  to  Chunking. 

12.  Archbishop  Curly  -  "Stalin  may  yet  make  war  on  the 
U.S." 

13.  Heavy  rains  boost  the  season  total. 


December  5,  1941: 

1.  German  rout  in  South  Russia  continues  -  forces 
withdrawn  from  Crimea  to  stem  Russian  tide  - 
Moscow  defenders  take  initiative. 

2.  Threat  to  Turkey.   Nazi  troops  reported  massing 
on  Bulgarian  border . 

3.  State  of  Jefferson  inaugurates  a  governor  (Judge 
John  C.  Childs  of  Crescent  City)  in  Yreka. 

4.  "X  -  2"  tells  of  four  fascist  schools  in  San 
Francisco  -  Sylvester  Andriano,  former  San 
Francisco  supervisor,  is  named. 

5.  Litvinov  due  to  arrive  in  San  Francisco  tomorrow. 

6.  The  draft  -  52  in  the  Bay  area  are  delinquent. 

December  6,  1941: 

1.  Russians  break  new  Nazi  line,  but  Moscow  again 
threatened. 

2.  Britain  declares  war  on  the  Finns. 

3.  British  smash  Nazi  attacks  on  their  line  in  Libya. 

4 .  Duce  spreads  fascism  here  hearing  told  -  two 
leaders  of  Italian  American  colony  give  details 
to  Assembly  Un-American  Activities  Committee. 


209 


Olney:      5.   Pacific  crisis  -  Japan  answers  FDR  -  "Troops  in 
Indochina  don't  exceed  treaty  limit."  Tokyo's 
answer  soft  and  meaningless.   "At  Tokyo  the  new 
Japanese  press  spokesman  continued  to  insist  that 
everything  could  be  all  right  if  America  and  others 
would  only  'understand'.  He  said,  'We  are  amazed 
to  find  a  big  misunderstanding  on  the  part  of  the 
United  States  government  regarding  our  policy  in 
the  Far  East.   The  whole  statement  seems  to  allege 
that  we  are  following  a  policy  of  force  and  conquest 
in  establishing  a  military  despotism.   They  (Washing 
ton)  have  misunderstood  our  fundamental  policy  -  the 
negotiations  will  continue  in  an  effort  to  correct 
this  misunderstanding.   I  do  not  think  that  the 
United  States  is  delaying  an  agreement  purposely. 
We  have  made  clear  that  we  have  no  territorial 
ambitions.'"  The  new  spokesman,  Tomokazu  Hori, 
former  Consul  General  at  Los  Angeles,  has  evidently 
been  installed  to  carry  out  the  speak  softly  policy 
till  things  get  a  little  clearer  in  Russia  and  the 
Near  East. 

6.  House  votes  $8  billion  for  defense. 

7.  Serbs  claim  guerrilla  successes. 

8.  Parisians  defy  Nazis  again.  Two  are  attacked. 

9.  Probe  of  ban  on  soldiers  in  local  hotels. 

10.  Induction  speed-up  is  expected. 

11.  Trenton,  New  Jersey.   Bundists  are  set  free  -  New 
Jersey  Supreme  Court  reversed  convictions  of  Wilhelm 
Kunze,  leader  of  the  German-American  Bund,  and  others, 
for  inciting  hatred  of  Jews  at  Bund  meetings,  etc. 


December  7,  1941,  a  Sunday,  was  the  day  that  changed  all  this. 
In  the  morning,  as  usual,  I  read  my  copy  of  the  San  Francisco 
Chronicle.   It  contained  a  section  called  "This  World."   Its  cover 
was  a  picture  of  Admiral  Phillips  in  Singapore.   The  article  about 
him  inside  described  him  as  "all  brains."  It  also  summarized  the 
existing  situation  in  the  Pacific  perfectly  in  the  following 
language: 

"For  the  first  time  in  a  century,  not  a  British  mer 
chantman  lay  in  Shanghai's  harbor  last  week.  All  ships 
flying  the  Red  Duster  had  scurried  south  from  Shanghai's 


210 


Olney :      malodorous ,  muddy  Whangpoo  River  to  Hong  Kong  or 
Manila.   The  last  Dutch  ship  had  left  quietly  one 
night,  and  U.S.  merchantmen  had  not  come  in  for 
weeks . 

Shanghai's  great  garish  International  Settlement 
on  the  Whangpoo  had  been  abandoned  to  the  Japanese 
troops  who  pressed  on  all  sides.   In  case  of  war,  its 
loss  would  be  inevitable  and  its  defense  suicidal. 
The  last  700  U.S.  Marines  filed  aboard  a  transport 
leaving  behind  on  the  jetty  a  tearful  mob  of  Russian 
cabaret  girls. 

Through  Eastern  Asia  men  took  to  arms  and  ships 
took  to  safe  harbor  and  throughout  the  world  lay  the 
intense  expectancy  of  war  -  Japan  against  the  United 
States,  Britain,  the  Dutch  East  Indies,  and  China. 

In  Singapore  thousands  of  volunteers  were  mobilized 
into  active  service.   In  Rangoon  the  docks  were  crowded 
with  newly  landed  Indian  troops,  and  the  Burmese  roads 
were  lined  with  trucks  carrying  them  north  to  the  Indo 
china  frontier,  where  the  Japanese  crouched  to  spring. 

In  the  Dutch  East  Indies  the  militiamen  were  called 
up  and  the  Air  Force  mobilized.   In  Cavite  and  Olangapo 
U.S.  Naval  Stations  in  the  Philippines  total  blackouts 
began.   All  leaves  from  the  garrison  of  Corregidor 
Island,  defending  Manila  Bay,  were  cancelled.   In  Hong 
Kong  defenses  were  in  'an  advanced  state  of  readiness' 
and  planes  roared  over  in  mock  raids. 

Whether  or  not  real  raids  would  come  depended  on  a 
long  drawn-out  'conversation'  in  Washington,  D.C. 
Japan's  Ambassador  Kichisaburo  Nomura,  alone  for  nine 
teen  months  and  with  Special  Envoy  Saburo  Kurusu  for 
three  weeks,  had  talked  often  with  America's  Secretary 
of  State  Cordel  Hull. 

Men  were  mobilized  and  ships  had  fled  last  week 
because  the  climax  had  come.   The  United  States  had 
presented  a  document  of  'fundamental  American  policies' 
on  which  any  settlement  must  be  based. 

At  week's  end  the  Japanese  had  yet  to  reply,  but 
official  news  agency  Domei  stormed,  'It  is  utterly 
impossible  for  Japan  to  accept.   The  American  document 
cannot  serve  as  the  basis  for  further  negotiations.' 
In  Washington  Kurusu  said  bravely,  'I  do  not  give  up 
that  easily.'" 


211 


Olney:   This  was  disturbing  reading  on  that  quiet  Sunday  morning,  but  it  did 
not  seem  to  me  to  require  any  alteration  in  our  family  plans  for  the 
day.   Our  three  children  were  fourteen,  twelve,  and  four  at  the  time, 
and  Elizabeth  put  up  a  lunch  and  we  all  went  to  Golden  Gate  Park  for 
a  picnic.  We  took  along  some  extra  bread  crusts  and  had  our  lunch 
at  the  edge  of  one  of  the  lakes  while  the  children  fed  the  bread 
crusts  to  the  ducks .   Then  we  went  to  the  part  of  the  park  called 
the  Fleishhacker  Zoo  where  there  were  swings,  slides,  and  other 
amusements  for  children.  Our  visit  was  capped  off  about  three 
o'clock  or  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  by  a  ride  on  the  miniature 
steam  train.  When  we  got  on  the  train,  a  Japanese  couple  with  their 
little  child  were  on  the  seat  in  front  of  us.  They  were  having  as 
good  a  time  as  we  were.  It  took  the  little  train  only  a  few  minutes 
to  make  its  circular  trip,  but  during  that  time  fresh  newspapers  had 
been  inserted  on  the  racks.   Even  before  we  stepped  off  the  car  we 
read  the  huge  headline,  "JAPS  BOMB  PEARL  HARBOR."  The  Japanese 
couple  in  front  of  us  said  not  a  word.   They  just  looked  at  each 
other  with  the  most  horrified,  woeful  expressions  I've  ever  seen. 
They  knew,  as  we  did,  that  the  world  would  never  be  the  same  again 
for  any  of  us . 

These  first  reports  were  only  that  Pearl  Harbor  had  been  bombed. 
There  was  nothing  to  indicate  the  extent  of  the  damage.  We  supposed 
that  the  damage  must  have  been  slight  since  the  Pacific  fleet  cer 
tainly  had  the  capability  of  protecting  itself.   It  never  occurred 
to  us  that  the  fleet  could  have  been  caught  by  surprise. 

Our  family  went  home  from  Golden  Gate  Park  and,  of  course,  I 
immediately  telephoned  the  attorney  general's  office,  but  there  was 
nobody  there.   Elizabeth  and  I  then  put  in  a  brief  appearance  at  a 
cocktail  party  and  returned  home  to  listen  to  the  radio  until  late 
into  the  night.   There  was  little  on  the  radio  excepting  talk  about 
the  attack  on  Hawaii  and  a  great  deal  of  speculation  as  to  where  the 
attacking  Japanese  planes  could  have  come  from.   Most  of  the  com 
mentators  thought  the  planes  had  come  from  the  Japanese  air  base  on 
Kwajalein  Island  in  the  Marshalls  and  only  a  few  guessed  the  attack 
might  have  come  from  a  fleet  of  aircraft  carriers. 

I  reported  at  my  office  in  the  attorney  general's  office  early 
on  Monday  morning  and  immediately  stepped  into  a  flurry  of  activity 
so  great  and  so  confusing  that  I  cannot  now  remember  it  all  and  have 
particular  difficulty  recalling  the  sequence  of  events.   This  was  a 
strange  period  to  live  through.   All  our  coastal  cities  were  blacked 
out  at  night.   This  meant  all  houses  and  buildings  without  any  light 
visible  from  the  outside  and  traffic  without  any  headlights  excepting 
only  a  small  allowable  slit  with  insufficient  light  to  illuminate 
the  roadway  but  with  enough  so  that  one  could  be  seen  by  an  approach 
ing  vehicle.   One  of  my  first  duties  was  working  with  William 
Sweigert,  Earl  Warren's  chief  assistant  attorney  general,  and  "Bud" 


212 


Olney:   Carpenter,  assistant  counsel  for  the  League  of  California  Cities, 

in  drafting  a  blackout  ordinance  for  adoption  by  the  coastal  cities 
and  counties  in  order  to  enforce  the  blackout. 

The  army  took  immediate  precautions  against  a  possible  Japanese 
landing.   A  system  of  air  watchers  was  organized  covering  every  mile 
of  the  Pacific  coast.   These  were  civilian  volunteers  organized  under 
the  direction  of  Army  Air  Corps  officers.  They  were  trained  in  the 
recognition  of  aircraft  both  "ours"  and  "theirs."  They  were  supplied 
with  field  glasses  and  telephones  and  reported  to  a  number  of  infor 
mation  centers  every  airplane  they  saw  in  the  air  night  or  day.   All 
flying  along  the  coast  was  forbidden  except  for  military  aircraft 
and  scheduled  airlines.   The  airlines  were  required  to  fly  with  the 
windows  obscured  with  shutters  or  curtains,  so  that  the  passengers 
could  not  see  out  and  so  at  night  the  plane  from  the  outside  would 
show  nothing  excepting  its  running  lights.   Huge  search  lights  were 
installed  around  points  considered  to  be  of  strategic  importance 
and  they  searched  out  and  illuminated  every  aircraft  that  came  near. 

At  Mare  Island  and  Vallejo  a  whole  fleet  of  barrage  balloons  were 
installed.   These  balloons  were  unmanned  and  were  on  cables  and  could 
be  raised  or  lowered  as  desired.  Their  purpose  was  to  force  attack 
ing  Japanese  bombers  to  fly  high  enough  so  that  they  could  be  hit 
with  anti-aircraft  fire.  At  the  time  of  the  Pearl  Harbor  attack, 
all  of  the  major  airplane  factories  in  the  United  States  were  in  the 
Pacific  coast  areas  of  Seattle,  Santa  Monica,  and  San  Diego.   Their 
importance  was  beyond  exaggeration.   A  tremendous  effort  was  made 
to  camouflage  them.   These  factories  were  covered  with  huge  nettings, 
and  on  the  nettings  there  were  erected  dummy  houses  and  other  build 
ings,  streets,  trees,  lamp  posts,  and  everything  else  necessary  to 
make  it  appear  from  the  air  like  a  suburban  residential  area.   These 
were  intended  to  deceive  Japanese  aerial  reconnaissance  and  attack. 
Believing  in  the  possibility  of  incendiary  air  raids,  a  system  of 
civilian  defense  was  organized  with  an  air  raid  warden  for  every 
block  in  every  coastal  town  and  city,  and  all  householders  were 
asked  to  whitewash  their  attics  and  keep  fire  extinguishers  in 
their  houses,  as  such  measures  had  been  found  to  be  helpful  when 
London  was  bombed. 

Late  in  February,  1942  in  Los  Angeles  there  was  an  air  raid  alert. 
One  night  the  radar  spotted  an  unidentified  object  and  some  trigger- 
happy  fellow  let  fly  with  an  anti-aircraft  gun.   Other  anti-aircraft 
batteries  followed  suit  and  there  was  a  very  considerable  banging 
and  quite  a  rain  of  metal  from  the  sky,  but  nothing  was  hit.   Of 
course,  it  alarmed  everybody.  We  had  a  similar  incident  in  San 
Francisco.   It  was  a  rather  foggy  night  and  the  radar  spotted  some 
thing  that  could  not  be  identified.   The  sirens  blew  and  the  entire 
city  was  blacked  out.   It  happened  that  Elizabeth  and  I  and  two 
other  couples  were  going  to  the  theater  that  night  and  we  were 


213 


Olney:   having  dinner  at  Solari's  on  Post  Street  next  to  the  St.  Francis 

Hotel  when  the  air  raid  alarm  was  sounded.   The  restaurant  was,  of 
course,  already  equipped  with  blackout  blinds,  so  the  lights  were 
kept  on  at  the  bar  and  they  served  dinner.   I  left  the  party  because 
1  felt  that  during  an  emergency  of  this  kind  I  ought  to  be  at  the 
attorney  general's  office  in  the  State  Building.   So  I  walked  in  the 
pitch  dark  from  Solari's  on  Post  Street  to  the  State  Building  on 
McAllister.   It  was  a  unique  experience.   There  was  not  one  little 
pinpoint  of  light  and  there  were  no  cars  moving.   It  was  almost  like 
a  dead  city.   I  could  hear  people  talking  but  no  other  sound.  When 
I  got  to  the  State  Building,  I  couldn't  find  any  elevator  working, 
so  I  walked  up  to  the  sixth  floor  where  our  offices  were.  Then  I 
discovered  that  while  this  air  raid  was  supposed  to  be  going  on, 
Oscar  Jahnsen,  the  attorney  general's  chief  investigator,  and  a 
couple  of  our  secretaries  had  gotten  stuck  in  the  elevator  between 
floors.   They  could  hear  the  sirens  and  knew  that  an  air  raid  was 
supposed  to  be  in  progress.   By  the  time  we  got  that  elevator  work 
ing  they  really  had  claustrophobia. 

Now,  these  air  scares  may  sound  amusing  in  retrospect,  but  they 
were  certainly  not  funny  at  the  time.   It  is  really  not  fair  to 
laugh  at  the  military  because  they  saw  a  blip  on  the  radar  and 
sounded  the  alarm.  The  radar  is  anything  but  foolproof.  It  will 
pick  up  a  flight  of  ducks  or  even  certain  kinds  of  clouds.   There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  in  both  these  cases  some  kind  of  unidentified 
object  showed  up  on  the  radar  screen.  We  now  know  that  whatever  it 
was,  it  was  not  a  Japanese  plane.  However,  it  might  have  been,  and 
in  my  opinion  it  was  proper  to  sound  the  alarm  lest  it  be  too  late. 
One  need  only  recall  the  blips  that  showed  up  on  the  radar  screen 
in  Hawaii  that  were  thought  to  be  birds  or  perhaps  some  arriving 
American  B-17s,  when  it  turned  out  that  it  was  an  immense  Japanese 
air  armada  heading  directly  for  Pearl  Harbor. 

Following  Pearl  Harbor,  the  federal  authorities  acted  promptly 
to  assure  the  country's  internal  security.   On  December  7  and  8, 
1941,  President  Roosevelt  issued  proclamations  declaring  all 
nationals  of  the  nations  with  which  we  were  at  war  to  be  enemy 
aliens.   This  followed  the  precedent  of  World  War  I  and  was  based 
upon  the  same  statutory  enactment  which  supported  the  proclamations 
of  President  Woodrow  Wilson  in  this  regard.   By  executive  action, 
certain  restrictive  measures  were  applied  to  all  enemy  aliens  with 
out  regard  to  their  particular  nationality.   The  Attorney  General 
of  the  United  States,  through  the  Department  of  Justice,  including 
the  FBI,  was  charged  with  the  administration  and  enforcement  of 
these  proclamations.  When  necessary  fully  to  implement  his  action, 
the  attorney  general  was  assigned  the  responsibility  of  issuing 
administrative  regulations.  He  also  had  the  authority  to  declare 
prohibited  zones  to  which  enemy  aliens  were  to  be  denied  admittance 


214 


Olney:   or  from  which  they  were  to  be  excluded  in  any  case  where  the  national 
security  required.   The  possession  of  certain  articles  (such  as  radio 
transmitters,  cameras,  firearms,  etc.)  was  declared  by  the  proclama 
tions  to  be  unlawful  and  these  articles  were  described  as  contraband. 
The  attorney  general  had  authority  to  intern  some  enemy  aliens  as 
might  be  regarded  as  dangerous  to  the  national  security  if  permitted 
to  remain  at  large. 

On  the  night  of  December  7,  1941  and  during  the  days  that  followed, 
certain  enemy  aliens  (German,  Italian,  and  some  Japanese)  were  appre 
hended  and  held  in  detention  pending  the  determination  as  to  whether 
they  should  be  interned.   These  arrests  were  based  on  lists  of  sus 
pects  previously  compiled  by  the  Federal  Bureau  of  Investigation, 
the  Office  of  Naval  Intelligence,  and  the  army's  intelligence  service, 
known  as  G-2.   During  the  initial  stages  of  this  action,  some  two 
thousand  persons  were  arrested.   Some  Japanese  aliens  were  included 
in  this  number,  but  most  were  Germans  and  Italians.   However,  no  steps 
were  taken  by  the  attorney  general  to  provide  for  the  collection  of 
contraband  and  no  prohibited  zones  were  proclaimed. 

Towards  the  end  of  December,  1941,  General  John  L.  DeWitt,  Command 
ing  General,  Western  Defense  Command,  which  included  the  areas  of 
Washington,  Oregon,  California,  Montana,  Idaho,  Nevada,  Utah,  and 
Arizona,  and  whose  headquarters  were  at  the  San  Francisco  Presidio, 
requested  the  attorney  general  to  enforce  the  contraband  prohibitions 
and  to  declare  prohibited  zones  surrounding  vital  installations  along 
the  coast.   General  DeWitt 's  conclusion  that  this  was  a  military 
necessity  was  based  in  part  upon  the  interception  of  unauthorized 
radio  communications  identified  as  emanating  from  certain  areas  along 
the  coast  during  the  weeks  following  December  7th  when  nearly  every 
ship  leaving  a  west  coast  port  was  attacked  by  an  enemy  submarine, 
thus  seeming  to  evidence  conclusively  the  existence  of  hostile  shore- 
to-submarine  communication. 

General  DeWitt 's  request  led  to  a  series  of  conferences  in  Washing 
ton  and  San  Francisco  between  representatives  of  the  War  and  Justice 
Departments.   As  a  result,  it  was  agreed  that  searches  without  warrants 
of  the  premises  occupied  by  enemy  aliens  for  the  presence  of  contraband 
would  be  authorized.   The  Department  of  Justice  agreed  to  declare  pro 
hibited  zones  surrounding  vital  installations  and  to  provide  for  the 
exclusion  from  these  zones  of  enemy  aliens.   The  extent  and  location 
of  these  zones  were  to  be  determined  on  the  basis  of  recommendations 
submitted  by  the  commanding  general.   Thereupon,  General  DeWitt  sub 
mitted  recommendations  calling  for  the  establishment  of  ninety-nine 
prohibited  zones  in  the  state  of  California  and  two  restricted  zones. 
These  were  followed  by  similar  recommendations  pertaining  to  Arizona, 
Oregon,  and  Washington.   The  prohibited  zones  in  California  surrounded 
various  points  along  the  sea  coast,  installations  in  the  San  Francisco 


215 


Olney :   Bay  Area,  particularly  along  the  waterfront,  and  in  Los  Angeles  and 
San  Diego.   The  recommendations  with  respect  to  California  were 
received  by  the  attorney  general  on  January  25,  1942.   The  attorney 
general,  in  a  series  of  press  releases,  designated  as  prohibited  zones 
the  ninety-nine  areas  recommended  by  General  DeWitt. 

Some  evacuation  was  thus  necessitated,  but  most  of  the  enemy  aliens 
affected  were  able  to  take  up  residence  in  or  near  places  adjacent  to 
the  prohibited  zone.   For  example,  a  large  prohibited  zone  embraced 
the  San  Francisco  waterfront.   Enemy  aliens  living  in  this  section 
were  required  only  to  move  elsewhere  in  San  Francisco.   Only  aliens 
of  enemy  nationality  (German,  Italian,  and  Japanese)  were  affected 
and  they  were  all  affected  equally.   No  persons  of  Japanese  ancestry 
born  in  the  United  States  were  required  to  move  under  this  program. 

Some  problems  were  presented  which  involved  individual  assistance 
and  the  Justice  Department  arranged  for  the  Federal  Security  Agency 
to  lend  assistance  in  unusually  needy  cases.   Tom  C.  Clark,  then  the 
west  coast  representative  of  the  Antitrust  Division  of  the  Justice 
Department  and  later  Associate  Justice  of  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court,  supervised  these  activities  and  coordinated  all  the  activities 
of  the  Justice  Department  during  this  phase  of  alien  enemy  control. 
It  was  in  this  capacity  that  I  first  met  him. 

The  proclamations  with  respect  to  the  possession  of  contraband  by 
enemy  aliens  and  the  declaration  of  zones  prohibited  to  enemy  aliens, 
which  were  the  maximum  measures  authorized  by  peace-time  and  World  War 
I  laws,  proved  to  be  totally  inadequate  for  meeting  the  situation  on 
the  Pacific  coast.   Notwithstanding  these  measures,  there  were  many 
evidences  of  successful  communication  of  information  to  the  enemy 
concerning  our  military  installations,  three  of  which  are  illustrative. 
On  February  22,  1942,  the  shore  battery  defending  Goleta  had  been  with 
drawn  to  be  replaced  by  different  guns.   On  February  23,  a  Japanese 
submarine  shelled  Goleta  without  opposition  in  an  effort  to  destroy 
the  oil  installation  there.   At  the  time  of  the  shelling,  this  was 
the  only  point  along  the  coast  where  an  enemy  submarine  could  have 
surfaced  and  fired  on  an  important  installation  without  coming  within 
the  range  of  coast  defense  guns. 

This  attack  on  the  American  mainland  was  an  enormous  shock  to  our 
civil  population.   It  was  the  first  time  since  the  War  of  1812  that 
an  enemy  military  force  had  inflicted  damage  on  the  continental  United 
States.   It  was  the  first  time  in  all  history  that  we'd  had  an  enemy 
ship  on  the  Pacific  coast.   A  little  after  this  incident,  a  submarine- 
based  aircraft  dropped  incendiary  bombs  near  Brookings,  Oregon  in  an 
effort  to  start  forest  fires.   This,  according  to  the  army,  was  in 
the  only  section  of  the  Pacific  coast  which  could  have  been  approached 
by  enemy  aircraft  without  detection  by  aircraft  warning  devices.   At 


216 


Olney:  Astoria,  Oregon  a  Japanese  submarine  surfaced  and  shelled  our  shore 
batteries  there  from  the  only  position  at  which  a  surfaced  submarine 
could  have  approached  the  coast  line  close  enough  to  shell  a  part  of 
the  coast  defenses  without  being  in  range  of  the  coastal  batteries, 
thus  displaying  a  precise  knowledge  of  the  position  and  range  of  the 
coast  defense  guns  at  Astoria.   Of  course,  there  was  also  the  Pearl 
Harbor  experience,  which  involved  a  most  detailed  and  accurate  know 
ledge  by  the  Japanese  naval  aviators  of  American  patrols ,  naval  dis 
positions,  and  so  forth  on  the  morning  of  December  7,  1941.   (We  know 
now  that  part  of  this  information  was  supplied  from  Honolulu  by  Takeo 
Yoshikawa,  a  spy  and  an  ensign  in  the  Japanese  naval  intelligence.) 

The  enforcement  of  the  contraband  proclamations  was  impeded  by  the 
fact  that  many  Japanese  aliens  resided  in  premises  owned  by  American 
born  persons  of  Japanese  descent.   The  existing  law  permitted  spot 
raids  without  a  warrant  only  on  those  premises  occupied  exclusively 
by  aliens.   Mixed-occupancy  premises  or  those  occupied  solely  by 
American  citizens  could  be  searched  for  contraband  only  by  warrant 
based  upon  probable  cause.   The  attorney  general's  proclamations  of 
contraband  and  the  declaration  of  restricted  zones  left  unanswered  a 
host  of  important,  practical  questions,  some  of  which  were  listed  by 
the  army  as  follows : 

(a)  "A  fix  is  established  on  a  radio  transmitter.   Trans 
mission  of  unlawful  radio  signals  is  established,  but  the 
location  is  determined  only  within  a  defined  area  such  as  a 
city  block.   Manifestly  an  accurate  description  of  the  pre 
mises,  the  operator's  name,  and  a  description  of  equipment 
cannot  be  furnished.   What  action  can  be  taken?" 

(b)  "The  unlawful  transmission  of  radio  signals  has  been 
established  through  interception.   A  series  of  fixes  deter 
mines  the  location  of  the  transmitter  within  a  general  area, 
such  as  Monterey  County.   Further,  there  is  convincing 
evidence  of  shore- to- enemy  submarine  communication.   What 
action  can  be  taken  to  isolate  the  area  and  conduct  an 
effective  search  to  locate  the  mobile  unit?" 

(c)  "An  enemy  alien  is  resident  with  a  citizen,  perhaps  a 
relative  such  as  a  wife.   While  it  cannot  be  proven  that  he 
owns  or  actually  controls  contraband,  it  can  be  proven  that 
he  has  unlimited  access  to  such.   The  situation  is  as 
potentially  dangerous  as  if  it  could  be  proven  that  he 
actually  owned  or  controlled  the  contraband.   What  action 
can  be  taken?" 


217 


Olney:     (d)   "The  dual  citizenship  problem  is  perplexing.   Self- 
serving  declarations  of  an  election  are  of  little  meaning, 
particularly  where  conduct  is  incompatible  with  the  so- 
called  election.   What  methods  exist  or  what  steps  are  in 
contemplation  looking  toward  the  control  of  1)  dual  citizens, 
2)  disloyal,  subversive  citizens  (where  there  has  been  no 
overt  act  detected)?" 

General  DeWitt  was  putting  these  and  other  difficult  questions  to 
the  attorney  general  as  early  as  Jaunary  5,  1942.   There  was  no 
answer  to  them  under  the  then  existing  law  and  authority.   Of  course, 
at  this  time  the  War  and  Navy  Departments  and  the  Department  of 
Justice  were  doing  everything  they  possibly  could  to  identify  and 
take  into  custody  all  disloyal  or  subversive  persons  whether  aliens 
or  not.   This  was  an  important  and  necessary  program,  but  it  was  no 
answer  to  the  practical  problems  of  defense  that  were  plaguing  General 
DeWitt. 

On  February  19,  1942,  President  Roosevelt  issued  Executive  Order 
no'.  9066.   It  provided  after  its  recitals: 

"Now,  therefore,  by  virtue  of  the  authority  vested  in  me  as 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  Commander  in  Chief  of 
the  Army  and  Navy,  I  hereby  authorize  and  direct  the  Secre 
tary  of  War,  and  the  military  commanders  whom  he  may  from 
time  to  time  designate,  whenever  he  or  any  designated  com 
mander  deems  such  action  necessary  or  desirable,  to  pre 
scribe  military  areas  in  such  places  and  of  such  extent  as 
he  or  the  appropriate  military  commander  may  determine, 
from  which  any  or  all  persons  may  be  excluded,  and  with 
respect  to  which,  the  right  of  any  person  to  enter,  remain 
in,  or  leave  shall  be  subject  to  whatever  restrictions  the 
Secretary  of  War  or  the  appropriate  military  commander  may 
impose  in  his  discretion. . .Franklin  D.  Roosevelt,  The  White 
House,  February  19,  1942" 

Executive  Order  no,  9066  was  issued  by  the  Commander  in  Chief  as  a 
military  order  made  necessary  by  the  military  situation.   It  was 
designed  and  intended  to  be  used  by  military  commanders  in  defense 
of  the  Pacific  coast.   It  was  not  issued  in  response  to  any  civilian 
clamor  or  importunities. 

In  the  turmoil  of  the  days  and  weeks  immediately  following  Decem 
ber  7th,  there  was  great  confusion  in  the  minds  of  us  civilians  as  to 
exactly  what  had  happened  at  Pearl  Harbor  and  particularly  as  to  the 
extent  of  the  damage  inflicted  on  our  Pacific  fleet.   For  military 
reasons  the  extent  of  the  damage  was  not  announced.   Many  of  us  sup 
posed  the  damage  to  have  been  rather  light,  as  it  never  occurred  to 
us,  with  all  the  tension  and  forebodings  of  the  times,  that  the  United 
States  Navy  could  have  been  caught  with  its  guard  down  and  unprepared 
for  an  attack. 


218 


Olney:   As  time  went  by,  however,  and  we  in  the  attorney  general's  office 

came  into  more  and  more  frequent  contact  with  both  the  army  and  the 
navy,  we  came  gradually  to  realize  the  amazing  extent  of  the  damage 
which  the  Japanese  had  inflicted  in  only  a  few  hours.   We  came  to 
realize  that  Japanese  airplanes  flown  from  carriers  somewhere  in  the 
Pacific  (we  knew  not  where)  had  in  the  space  of  only  four  or  five 
hours  blown  up  the  battleship  Arizona,  capsized  the  Oklahoma,  sunk 
the  West  Virginia  and  the  California  at  their  moorings,  so  heavily 
damaged  the  four  additional  battleships  that  completed  the  Pacific 
fleet  that  they  could  not  leave  harbor  without  repairs,  killed  over 
two  thousand  Americans  and  wounded  two  thousand  more.   We  had  to 
face  the  fact,  along  with  the  military,  that  the  fleet  on  which  the 
United  States  had  expected  to  rely  for  our  defense  in  case  of  war  in 
the  Pacific  was  suddenly  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea  and  that  mastery 
of  the  Pacific  Ocean  had  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  Japanese. 

But  Pearl  Harbor  was  only  the  beginning  of  defeat.   Disaster  suc 
ceeded  disaster  with  stunning  rapidity.   On  December  8th,  Japanese 
planes  attacked  in  the  Philippines  and  without  damage  to  themselves 
destroyed  General  MacArthur's  air  force  as  it  sat  on  the  ground.   On 
December  10th,  the  United  States  naval  base  at  Cavite  was  destroyed 
by  fire  and  on  the  same  day  the  Japanese  made  their  first  landing  in 
the  Philippines.   On  the  same  day,  the  Japanese  made  an  amphibious 
landing  on  the  coast  of  Malaya,  putting  ashore  an  army  which  moved 
through  the  jungle  to  attack  Singapore  from  the  rear.   Also  on  that 
day,  Japanese  torpedo  planes  and  fighters  attacked  the  powerful  British 
battleships  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  the  Repulse  off  the  coast  of  Indo 
china  and  sank  them  both  -  the  first  time  in  history  that  major  battle 
ships  while  at  sea  and  on  the  alert  had  been  sunk  by  aircraft.   These 
were  the  two  British  ships  whose  arrival  at  Singapore  had  been  re 
ported  in  the  San  Francisco  Chronicle  on  December  7th,  and  Admiral 
Phillips,  whose  picture  had  appeared  on  the  cover  of  "This  World"  only 
three  days  before,  had  gone  down  with  his  ship  and  was  dead. 

The  Japanese  quickly  attacked  and  captured  the  American  held  island 
of  Guam.   On  December  llth,  the  Japanese  attacked  the  small  American 
garrison  under  Marine  Major  James  Devereux  on  Wake  Island  with  a 
light  cruiser,  six  destroyers,  two  transports,  and  a  landing  party  of 
560  infantry  trained  sailors.   The  American  resistance  was  savage  and 
the  Japanese  were  forced  to  retire.   Everyone  knew  the  Japanese  would 
return  and  that  the  garrison  must  have  reinforcements  and  more  ammuni 
tion  if  they  were  to  hold  out.   Reinforcements  and  supplies  were 
actually  dispatched  from  Pearl  Harbor,  but  the  ships  were  so  few  in 
number  and  so  lightly  armed  that  they  were  ordered  to  return  to  Pearl 
Harbor  before  reaching  Wake,  being  quite  unable  to  contend  with  the 
Japanese  navy.   The  Japanese  did  return  on  December  23rd  and  succeeded 
in  landing  830  men.   The  250  United  States  Marines  and  one  hundred 
civilian  volunteers  fought  to  the  last  bullet,  but  in  the  end  were 
forced  to  surrender. 


219 


Olney:   The  inability  of  the  United  States  Navy  to  relieve  the  garrison  on 
Wake  was  the  clearest  possible  demonstration  of  its  weakness.   It 
was  certainly  a  shock  to  us  Calif ornians .  For  the  first  time  we 
civilians  grasped  the  fact  that  our  situation  in  the  Pacific  was 
really  desperate. 

The  disasters  continued.   The  Japanese  landed  in  Borneo  and  Hong 
Kong.  They  captured  Bangkok  and  Siam  without  firing  a  shot.   Shortly 
after  Christmas,  General  MacArthur  declared  Manila  an  open  city,  left 
the  Philippines,  and  retired  to  Australia.  Most  of  the  American 
troops  trapped  in  the  Philippines  had  been  driven  into  Corregidor 
Island  and  Bataan  Peninsula  where  they  fought  back  very  stubbornly 
and  tied  up  a  very  sizeable  Japanese  force  for  months  before  they 
were  forced  to  surrender.  By  January,  1942,  Japanese  planes  from 
their  island  stronghold  of  Truk  were  bombing  the  Australians  in 
Rabaul,  and  on  February  19,  the  same  day  that  President  Roosevelt 
issued  Executive  Order  no.  9066,  Japanese  carrier-based  planes 
wrecked  Allied  shipping  in  the  harbor  at  Darwin,  Australia.   On 
February  26th,  a  large  Japanese  expeditionary  force  was  approaching 
the  island  of  Java.   The  so-called  ABDA  Navy  sailed  out  to  meet 
them,  including  the  American  cruiser  Houston,  which  had  been  host  to 
President  Roosevelt  on  four  cruises.   All  of  the  ABDA  ships  were 
sunk  with  little  loss  to  the  Japanese.   The  Houston  simply  disappear 
ed  and  her  fate  remained  a  mystery  until  the  end  of  the  war  when 
most  of  her  crew  was  found  in  Japanese  prison  camps.   The  suddenness, 
number,  and  completeness  of  these  Japanese  successes  made  us  fearful, 
understandably,  I  think,  of  more  to  come.  Writing  of  the  strategic 
situation  at  this  time  in  his  History  of  the  United  States  Navy  in 
World  War  II,  Volume  III,  page  218,  Samuel  Eliot  Morrison  has 
written: 

"Anything  might  happen.  Even  strikes  on  Puget 
Sound,  San  Francisco,  or  the  Panama  Canal  were 
not  beyond  the  range  of  possibility." 

Surely  the  military  believed  this,  as  all  their  barricaded  beaches, 
barrage  balloons,  air  watchers,  and  camouflaged  factories  and  black 
outs  attested.   There  seemed  to  be,  even  to  us  amateurs,  some  logical 
reasons  for  a  Japanese  strike  at  the  Pacific  coast.   There  were  no 
formidable  defenses.   There  was  very  little  military  hardware  avail 
able  because  we  had  been  sending  everything  we  had  in  the  way  of 
airplanes,  guns,  and  munitions  to  Britain  to  enable  her  to  survive 
in  the  war  with  Hitler.   Most  of  the  Pacific  fleet  was  on  the 
bottom  and  what  remained  was  so  badly  damaged  as  to  be  inoperable 
for  some  months  at  least.  We  had  no  air  force  on  the  Pacific  coast, 
as  was  evidenced  by  our  inability  to  contend  with  the  Japanese  sub 
marines. 


220 


Olney:   When  the  Union  Oil  Company  oil  tanker  Montebello  was  torpedoed  off 

Cambria  in  San  Luis  Obispo  County,  Abe  Brazil,  the  district  attorney 
of  San  Luis  Obispo  County,  telephoned  Attorney  General  Earl  Warren 
to  inform  him  about  the  occurrence  and  the  excitement  and  conster 
nation  in  the  little  town  of  Cambria  from  where  the  burning  tanker 
was  plainly  visible.   In  Cambria  they  were  very  upset  because  no 
planes  had  appeared  and  no  defense  measures  seemed  to  be  in  progress. 
The  attorney  general  then  made  a  personal  call  on  Admiral  Greenslade, 
commanding  the  12th  Naval  District,  to  ask  if  this  could  be  true. 
The  admiral  replied  that  he  could  state  in  confidence  that  it  was 
indeed  true.   The  torpedoing  of  the  tanker  had  occurred  exactly  as 
reported,  but  the  admiral  said  nothing  could  be  done  about  the  sub 
marine  because  there  were  only  four  military  planes  operational  on 
the  entire  Pacific  coast  and  all  four  of  these  were  fighters  in 
capable  of  bombing  a  submarine. 

The  Japanese,  on  the  other  hand,  had  virtually  complete  control 
of  the  waters  off  the  entire  Pacific,  for  the  time  being  at  least. 
They  had  sufficient  cruisers,  carriers,  and  planes  with  supporting 
ships  to  mount  a  strike  almost  anywhere.   They  had  demonstrated  their 
capability  of  fueling  their  ships  at  sea.   They  also  had  the  two  most 
powerful  battleships  in  the  world,  the  Yamato  and  the  Musachi,  both 
63,000-ton  monsters  carrying  the  heaviest  naval  guns  ever  built. 
Less  than  a  year  before  in  May,  1941,  the  less  heavily  built  Nazi 
battleship  Bismarck,  without  any  accompanying  air  cover,  had  raised 
havoc  with  Allied  shipping  all  over  the  North  Atlantic,  sinking  the 
great  British  battleship  Hood  in  the  process. 

Virtually  all  of  the  American  airplane  factories  were  located  on 
the  Pacific  coast,  Boeing  in  Seattle,  Douglas  and  Lockheed  in  Santa 
Monica  and  Burbank,  and  others  in  Los  Angeles  and  San  Diego.   Our 
principal  naval  construction  yards  were,  of  course,  at  Bremerton, 
Mare  Island,  Hunters  Point,  San  Pedro,  and  San  Diego.   A  heavy 
strike  at  any  or  all  of  these  targets  seemed  to  be  well  within 
Japanese  military  capability.   It  seemed  to  us  that  there  would  be 
unusual  advantages  to  the  Japanese  from  such  a  strike.   In  addition 
to  the  actual  damage  which  might  be  done,  especially  if  they  were 
to  shell  our  factories  and  installations  with  the  Yamato  or  Musachi, 
the  psychological  effects  would  be  immense.   A  major  part  of  our  war 
effort  would  be  diverted  into  building  defenses  for  the  Pacific 
coast.   This  would  delay  and  impede  our  efforts  to  rebuild  the 
Pacific  fleet,  to  provide  defense  for  Australia,  and  to  supply 
tottering  Britain.   It  would  probably  cause  us  to  reduce  the  volume 
of  arms  and  munitions  that  we  were  exporting  and  keep  them  in  the 
United  States  to  defend  our  own  shores.   The  military  not  only  saw 
all  this  but  seemed  to  have  other  reasons  of  its  own  for  believing 
that  a  Japanese  strike  against  the  Pacific  coast  was  not  only 
possible,  but  probable.   Such  was  the  external  military  threat  we 
faced  during  the  months  after  Pearl  Harbor. 


221 


Olney:   Now,  what  was  our  internal  situation  during  this  same  period?  As 
mentioned  above,  beginning  on  the  night  of  December  7,  1941,  the 
FBI  began  a  roundup  of  all  known  dangerous  subversives,  both  aliens 
and  citizens  alike.  This  included  the  ringleaders  in  such  organiza 
tions  as  the  German- American  Bund,  the  leaders  of  the  militant 
Italian  fascist  organizations,  and  also  the  leaders  of  the  more 
virulent  home-grown  American  organizations  such  as  The  Silver  Shirts 
in  the  Middle  West  and  The  Friends  of  Progress  in  Los  Angeles.   Most 
of  these  people  remained  in  custody  for  the  remainder  of  the  war, 
although  the  leaders  of  The  Friends  of  Progress  in  Los  Angeles  were 
freed  within  a  week  by  order  of  Attorney  General  Biddle  on  the  ground 
that  while  there  was  no  lack  of  proof  of  their  adherence  to  the 
principles  of  Hitler's  Nazi  regime,  their  promotion  of  the  cause  had 
gone  no  farther  than  verbal  utterances  and  urgings  and  they  had  as 
yet  committed  no  overt  act.   There  were  a  few  subversive  Japanese, 
some  aliens,  some  with  American  citizenship,  who  were  caught  in  this 
initial  roundup,  but  they  were  few  indeed  when  compared  with  the 
number  of  subversive  Germans  and  Italians  and  fewer  still  when 
compared  with  the  total  population  in  California  of  Germans,  Italians, 
and  Japanese. 

In  January,  1942,  when  the  ninety-nine  prohibited  zones  and  two 
restricted  zones  from  which  all  enemy  aliens  were  to  be  excluded 
were  proclaimed  by  the  attorney  general  on  the  recommendation  of 
General  DeWitt,  they  seriously  affected  the  state's  commercial 
fishing  industry.   The  questions  at  once  arose  as  to  whether  it  was 
necessary  to  exclude  all  these  fishermen  from  coastal  water  for  no 
other  reason  than  that  they  lacked  American  citizenship  and  in  the 
eyes  of  the  law  were  citizens  or  subj.ects  of  countries  with  whom  we 
were  at  war.   Should  there  be  some  exception  to  the  exclusion  order? 

Examination  into  the  matter  quickly  disclosed  important  practical 
differences  between  the  Italian  and  the  Japanese  fishermen.  Most  of 
the  Italian  alien  fishermen  had  been  resident  in  the  United  States 
for  many  years.   They  had  come  from  Italy  as  young  men,  usually 
speaking  no  English,  had  taken  up  fishing  for  a  livelihood  and 
continued  in  it  all  these  years.  Most  of  them  had  married  and  had 
children  who  were,  of  course,  natural  born  American  citizens.   These 
children  had  been  educated  in  the  public  schools .   Some  of  them  had 
entered  the  professions  and  the  business  community,  while  others 
continued  the  fishing  business  with  their  fathers,  but  all  of  them 
were  thoroughly  integrated  into  their  local  communities.   There  were 
many  Italian  social  and  political  organizations  of  which  these  alien 
fishermen  were  members,  but  these  organizations  were  free  and  inde 
pendent  and  nearly  always  democratically  organized.   There  were  no 
controls  from  above  and  abroad  as  there  were  in  Japanese  and  Nazi 
societies.   Furthermore,  the  Italian  fascist  organizations  in  the 
United  States  had  been  under  FBI  scrutiny  for  several  years  and  the 
dangerous  subversives  among  them  had  been  carefully  spotted  and 
listed.   As  a  result  they  were  already  interned. 


222 


Olney:   There  was  an  even  more  important  distinction  between  the  position 
of  the  alien  Italian  and  that  of  the  alien  Japanese.   The  Italian 
navy  posed  no  danger  whatever  to  the  security  of  the  Pacific  coast. 
The  danger  lay  in  the  Japanese  navy  exclusively.   The  Italian 
fishermen  in  California  coastal  waters  could  be  of  no  imaginable 
use  or  value  to  the  Japanese  navy  when  engaged  in  a  bombardment, 
landing,  or  aerial  strike,  while  Japanese  fishermen  could  be  helpful 
in  such  a  case.   It  was  because  of  differences  and  considerations 
such  as  these  that  an  exception  was  made  in  favor  of  the  alien 
Italian  fishermen  from  the  order  excluding  all  enemy  aliens  from 
coastal  waters. 

I  have  gone  into  this  explanation  at  some  length  because  in 
recent  years  it  has  been  asserted  that  the  reason  for  the  difference 
in  the  treatment  of  the  alien  Italian  and  the  alien  Japanese  with 
respect  to  exclusion  from  California's  coastal  waters  was  racial 
prejudice.   It  was  no  such  thing.   To  have  enforced  the  exclusion 
order  against  the  alien  Italian  fishermen  would  have  served  no 
military  purpose  and  would  have  added  nothing  to  the  security  of 
the  country.   The  situation  was  just  the  opposite  with  the  alien 
Japanese. 

Confronted  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  with  the  massive  attack  upon 
us  by  the  Japanese  empire,  we  suddenly  discovered  that  we  knew  next 
to  nothing  about  our  enemy.  We  knew  little  more  about  our  own 
Japanese  population,  either  alien  or  American  born.   It  is  true  that 
a  few  years  before  the  Office  of  Naval  Intelligence  had  detected  a 
disgruntled  American  naval  officer  selling  military  secrets  to 
Japanese  agents.   He  was  arrested,  tried,  and  convicted  and  the 
Japanese  who  had  corrupted  him  were  expelled  from  the  country. 
Army  intelligence,  known  as  G-2,  was  quite  aware  of  the  efforts  of 
Japanese  agents  to  gather  intelligence  about  our  military  installa 
tions,  equipment,  and  plans  and  had  taken  proper  precautionary 
measures . 

The  Federal  Bureau  of  Investigation,  however,  which  had  the 
assignment  and  jurisdiction  of  protecting  the  country  against  espi 
onage  and  subversion,  had  done  little  with  respect  to  the  Japanese. 
For  years  the  Bureau's  intelligence  resources  had  been  centered  on 
the  communists  and,  since  1939  at  least,  the  Nazis  and  fascists  had 
been  given  appropriate  attention.   In  comparison,  the  Japanese  had 
been  almost  igonred  by  the  Bureau.  As  a  result,  there  was  practical 
ly  no  accumulation  of  official  information  about  Japanese- American 
organizations,  their  aims,  officials,  and  any  potential  danger  that 
they  might  present.   Only  a  few  Japanese  secret  agents  and  spies, 
real  or  potential,  had  been  identified.  These  were  virtually  all 
Japanese  aliens  who  could  be,  and  were,  immediately  taken  into 
custody.   As  to  the  rest  of  the  Japanese  population  living  in  the 


223 


Olney:   United  States,  the  FBI  knew  next  to  nothing.   The  Bureau  should  not 
be  criticized  for  this.   The  Bureau's  resources  were  limited.   It 
was  proper  to  devote  the  resources  available  to  the  areas  where  the 
greatest  danger  appeared  to  lie.   The  Bureau  was  no  more  at  fault 
than  the  rest  of  us  for  failing  to  understand  and  foresee  the 
Japanese  aims  and  course  of  action. 

Following  the  attack  on  Pearl  Harbor,  we  in  the  California 
attorney  general's  office  were  sought  out  by  army  intelligence, 
which  was  part  of  General  DeWitt's  command.   They  were  very 
interested  in  having  us  draft  and  get  adopted  a  uniform  blackout 
ordinance,  which  would  make  it  possible  to  enforce  the  blackout 
through  regular  civilian  authority  and  legal  process.   They  con 
sulted  with  us  on  a  good  many  other  matters  as  well,  but  right 
from  the  beginning  they  kept  asking  us  for  all  the  information  we 
could  give  them  about  the  Japanese  population  of  the  state. 
Naturally,  we  made  every  effort  to  respond  to  this  request,  but  at 
the  beginning  we  could  be  of  no  help  at  all,  as  we  knew  no  more  and 
indeed  probably  not  as  much  about  our  Japanese  population  as  the 
military  did.   Some  things  were  well  known  or  were  easy  to  ascertain. 
In  December,  1941,  there  were  about  122,000  Japanese  living  on  the 
Pacific  coast.   About  96,000  of  this  number  were  citizens  of  the 
United  States  by  virtue  of  the  accident  of  birth.   The  rest  were 
Japanese  born  and  were  not  eligible  for  American  citizenship  under 
the  Oriental  Exclusion  Act.   The  alien  Japanese  were  known  as  Issei 
and  those  born  in  the  United  States  of  Japanese  alien  parents  and 
who  under  our  laws  were  American  citizens  were  called  Nisei,  or 
second-generation  Japanese.   Many  of  the  Nisei  (second-generation, 
American  born  Japanese)  had  been  sent  to  Japan  for  the  purpose  of 
pursuing  "cultural  training."  They  were  known  as  Kibei.   During 
the  1930s  there  were  so  many  Kibei  in  Japan  that  local  Japanese 
leaders  on  the  Pacific  coast  became  embarrassed  and  an  effort  was 
made  with  the  full  support  of  the  Japanese  government  to  bring  them 
back  to  the  United  States.   The  situation  was  described  in  an 
article  published  in  the  Hawaii  Sentinel  of  January  27,  1938,  as 
follows : 

"As  a  result  of  the  Manchurian  incident  and  the 
spectacular  performances  of  Japanese  athletics  in  the 
recent  Olympic  games,  the  love  of  Japan  reached  its 
boiling  point  among  the  second-generation  Japanese, 
who  possess  American  citizenship  rights. 

Things  Japanese  attract  them  so  much,  that  hundreds 
of  these  American  born  youths  are  returning  steadily  to 
Japan  for  education.   So  great  is  this  exodus  of  promis 
ing  youths,  that  Japanese  on  the  Pacific  coast  are  faced 
with  a  great  catastrophy  of  losing  their  cherished  rights, 
which  took  them  almost  fifty  years  to  gain. 


224 


Olney:         At  a  great  meeting,  held  recently  by  the  Los  Angeles 

Japanese  Association  and  the  Los  Angeles  Japanese  Chamber 
of  Commerce,  it  was  unanimously  moved  to  call  back  the 
second  generation  now  in  Japan.   The  Wakayama  Prefectural 
Association  in  America  formed  an  organization  called  'The 
Association  of  Calling  Back  Second  Generation'  and  sent 
Shiro  Fukioka,  59,  General  Secretary  of  Los  Angeles 
Japanese  Chamber  of  Commerce,  as  special  envoy.   The 
foreign  office  was  so  moved  by  Fukioka 's  plea,  that  it 
sent  out  word  to  all  immigration  organizations  in  differ 
ent  prefectures  to  encourage  a  united  drive,  using  this 
slogan,  'Second  generation  return  immediately  to  America!' 

Fukioka,  who  has  spent  nearly  forty  years  in  Pacific 
Coast  States,  says  thus  in  part:  'There  are  roughly  about 
20,000  American  born  youths  between  the  ages  of  18  and  25 
residing  now  in  Japan.   Being  high  school  graduates,  they 
are  well  versed  with  the  conditions  and  things  Japanese 
and  would  make  ideal  immigrants  to  North  America."1 

As  a  result  of  this  drive,  thousands  of  Kibei  did  return  to  the 
United  States.  Many  of  the  returning  Kibei  who,  of  course,  were 
American  citizens,  had  been  in  Japan  so  long  that  they  could  not 
speak  English.  Many  of  them  had  served  in  the  Japanese  army  or 
navy  as  required  by  Japanese  law  and  in  fulfillment  of  their  duty 
to  the  emperor. 

It  was  also  well  known  that  the  Nisei  enjoyed  dual  citizenship. 
This  was  possible  because  under  American  law,  Japanese  born  in  the 
United  States  of  alien  parents  were  citizens  of  the  United  States; 
while  under  Japanese  law,  the  children  born  of  subjects  of  the 
emperor  were  Japanese  citizens  or  subjects,  no  matter  what  their 
place  of  birth.   Japanese  law  did  provide  that  Japanese  born  in 
foreign  countries  might  renounce  their  Japanese  citizenship,  if 
they  so  chose,  by  filing  certain  papers  with  the  Japanese  consulate. 
Some  Nisei  had  followed  these  procedures  and  had  renounced  their 
Japanese  citizenship,  but  they  were  very  few. 

The  principal  reason  the  Japanese  in  the  United  States  were 
anxious  to  have  the  Kibei  returned  to  the  land  of  their  birth  was 
because  of  the  Alien  Land  Laws  in  effect  in  the  Pacific  coast  states. 
These  laws  prohibited  the  ownership  of  agricultural  lands  by  persons 
who  were  ineligible  for  American  citizenship,  and  the  purpose  of 
these  laws  had  been  widely  circumvented  by  the  device  of  placing 
the  legal  title  to  agriculturan  lands  in  the  names  of  American  born 
Japanese  who  were  American  citizens;  that  is,  the  Nisei.   In  Cali 
fornia,  a  very  large  and  important  part  of  the  agricultural  lands 
of  the  state  was  thus  held  by  Japanese.   This  device  worked  quite 
well  as  long  as  the  land-owning  Nisei  lived  with  their  parents,  but 
it  became  transparent  when  the  Nisei  went  to  Japan  to  live,  as  so 
many  of  them  did. 


225 


Olney:   There  was  one  aspect  of  Japanese  society  which  was  hardly  known  to 

and  not  appreciated  at  all  by  the  American  public  generally,  although 
it  was  well  understood  by  the  American  Department  of  State  and  in 
American  scholastic  and  religious  circles.  This  was  Shintoism. 
Prior  to  1932  or  1933,  there  were  many  large  religious  groups  who  • 
were  active  in  Japan.  At  that  time,  a  large  part  of  the  population 
was  Buddhist,  although  there  were  many  different  sects.  A  large 
number  were  Christians,  who  were  divided  into  many  different  denom 
inations.  The  majority,  probably,  were  believers  in  Shinto.   Shinto 
is  a  very  old  and  complicated  kind  of  religion.   It  had  certain  basic 
tenets.   Central  is  the  belief  that  the  first  emperor,  Jimnu  Tenno, 
who  reigned  in  660  B.C.,  was  descended  directly  from  the  Goddess  of 
the  Sun  and  that  the  whole  race,  therefore,  is  descended  from  divine 
ancestors  and,  consequently,  superior  to  any  other  race  on  the  face 
of  the  earth.   The  Japanese  Shintoist  is  taught  from  the  cradle  to 
revere  the  emperor  as  the  Son  of  the  Son  Goddess.   This  same  rever 
ence  is  displayed  toward  the  parents  and  grandparents  and  manifests 
itself  in  ancestor  worship. 

These  beliefs  were  used  by  the  militarists  when  they  came  to 
power  to  bind  the  Japanese  together  all  over  the  world,  creating  a 
unique  sense  of  nationalism.   The  militarists  made  Shinto  the  state 
religion.   The  militarists  used  their  political  power  to  break  up 
all  other  religious  organizations  and  to  eradicate  all  other  reli 
gious  beliefs  as  far  as  possible.   Confrontations  and  overt  incidents 
were  avoided,  but  the  pressure  against  other  religions  and  their 
practices  was  constant  and  effective.   The  result  was  the  develop 
ment  of  a  national  fanaticism  of  extraordinary  virulence. 

From  the  time  of  the  accession  of  the  militarists  to  power,  the 
Japanese  people  were  subject  to  psychological  conditioning,  propa 
ganda,  and  pressure  in  favor  of  Shinto  beliefs.   This  accounts  for 
their  dream  of  world  empire  and  world  supremacy.   It  accounts  for 
the  determined,  dangerous,  and  desperate  character  of  the  Japanese 
soldier  in  World  War  II.   It  accounts  for  the  kamikaze  pilots,  who 
volunteered  in  large  numbers  for  certain  death,  flying  their  planes 
like  missiles  to  crash  into  American  ships.   It  accounts  for  the 
determination  of  the  Japanese  army,  navy,  and  civilian  population 
to  fight  to  the  last  man,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  their  cities 
had  been  devastated  by  fire  bombs  and  they  were  without  hope  of  a 
successful  outcome  for  the  war.  In  1941  and  1942,  Shinto-based 
nationalism  reached  its  most  dramatic  pitch. 

This  development  of  Shinto  attracted  little  attention  at  the 
time,  but  there  was  every  reason  for  Americans  to  be  concerned  about 
it  because  Shintoism  had  been  widely  spread  among  our  Japanese  popu 
lation  by  means  of  the  Japanese  language  schools.   The  Japanese 
language  schools  in  California  were  established  long  before  the 
accession  to  power  by  the  Japanese  military  fascists.   Japanese 


226 


Olney:    immigrants,  like  those  from  many  other  countries,  have  always 
wanted  to  maintain  close  ties  with  their  original  homeland. 
Japanese  children  in  California  were  required  by  California  law 
to  attend  school  just  like  all  other  children.   There  they  were 
taught  in  the  English  language  and  subject  to  the  same  curricula 
as  everybody  else.   The  Japanese  community  did  not  object  to  this, 
but  they  thought  it  insufficient.   They  wanted  their  children  to 
know  the  Japanese  language  as  well  and  to  be  educated  in  Japanese 
culture.   Accordingly,  they  organized  their  own  system  of  Japanese 
language  schools.   Classes  were  taught  in  the  Japanese  language 
and  the  subjects  related  to  Japanese  culture.   The  result  was  that 
all  of  the  Japanese  children  attended  the  American  schools  as 
required  by  law  and  most  of  them  attended  Japanese  language  schools 
as  well.   For  many  years  there  was  nothing  objectionable  about  this 
system.   Indeed,  it  had  some  incidental  virtues.   For  example,  the 
Japanese  child  was  so  busy  going  to  two  schools  that  he  or  she  had 
little  opportunity  to  get  into  trouble.   This,  no  doubt,  was  one 
of  the  reasons  for  the  very  low  rate  of  juvenile  delinquency  in  the 
Japanese  population. 

However,  when  the  Japanese  militarists  began  to  lend  the  full 
support  of  the  Japanese  government  to  Shintoism,  the  situation  in 
the  schools  changed.   The  appointment  of  Shinto  priests  or  believers 
as  teachers  in  the  Japanese  language  schools  was  everywhere  encour 
aged  and,  if  necessary,  pressure  was  applied.   The  educational 
program  of  the  schools  was  directed  from  Tokyo  and  the  divinity  of 
the  emperor  and  the  unique  origins  of  the  Japanese  race  were  heavily 
emphasized.   It  is  estimated  that  there  were  more  than  240  Japanese 
language  schools  in  California  alone.   Some  nineteen  thousand  Japan 
ese  boys  and  girls  attended  these  schools  before  Pearl  Harbor.   It 
is  estimated  that  nearly  $400,000  was  spent  in  1941  alone  for  the 
Japanese  educational  program  directed  from  Tokyo.   In  November,  1933, 
there  was  founded,  with  its  headquarters  in  Tokyo,  an  organization 
called  Institute  for  the  Education  of  Over-Sea  Japanese.   The  purpose 
and  objective  of  this  organization  was  published  in  the  Japanese 
newspaper  Osaka  Mainichi,  which  has  been  translated  as  follows: 

"The  Institute  of  Over-Sea  People's  Education  is  an 
organization  for  infusing  the  Japanese  spirit  into  the 
second  generation  of  Japanese  abroad.   In  other  words, 
leave  the  second  generation  in  the  land  of  their  resi 
dence,  but  don't  let  them  forget  the  Japanese  spirit. 
In  buying,  select  Japanese  goods,  in  voting,  cast 
ballots  for  politicians  friendly  to  Japanese." 

As  late  as  February  17,  1941,  the  Japanese  daily  newspaper  Rafu 
Shimpo ,  published  in  Los  Angeles,  touched  on  this  subject  in  an 
article  which  reads,  in  part,  and  in  translation,  as  follows: 


227 


Olney:         "Re-educational  plan  for  the  promotion  of  the  father 
land.  The  Nisei  who  were  born  and  raised  in  the  foreign 
land  are  to  come  to  the  fatherland  far  away  to  find  the 
company  of  the  other  sex.   But  they  are  confronted  with 
difficulty  coming  from  the  differences  of  their  habits 
and  customs  with  those  of  the  fatherland.  Here  comes 
the  problem  of  're-education  of  the  Nisei.' 

Meantime,  to  make  the  abroad  compatriots  understand 
the  position  of  the  fatherland  under  the  new  regime  of 
Pan-Asiatic  principles,  and  to  unite  them  to  act  for  the 
realization  of  'enlightened  Asia,'  re-education  of  Nisei 
is  necessary.   So,  Imperial  Education  Association  made 
a  budget  of  yen  100,000  for  the  education  of  Nisei.   For 
this  purpose,  the  Committee  on  Overseas  Education  of  the 
Association,  in  cooperation  with  the  Department  of  Educa 
tion  and  the  Department  of  Foreign  Affairs  of  the  Govern 
ment  and  the  Goain  (Institute  for  the  Promotion  of  Asia) , 
elected  secretaries  and  established  an  office  for  educa 
tional  guidance  of  the  Nisei.   The  functions  of  the  office 
at  present  are  as  follows:   1.  Investigation  of  the 
educational  conditions  of  Nisei,  and  of  the  living  con 
ditions  of  the  teachers  abroad.   2.  Establishment  of  the 
fundamental  plan  for  the  education  of  Nisei.   3.  Assist 
ance  in  sending  good  teachers. 

At  present,  among  the  teachers  abroad  who  are  teaching 
Nisei,  a  good  number  of  them  want  to  come  to  the  father 
land.  Meantime,  many  of  the  teachers  here  in  this  country 
have  the  desire  to  go  abroad  to  fulfill  their  ambitions. 
A  proper  disposal  of  this  situation  alone  would  make  a 
new  atmosphere  in  the  educational  field.   So,  this  new 
project  of  the  Association  will  be  successful  in  every 
way." 

General  information  about  the  Japanese  population  which  we 
acquired  or  developed  in  the  state  attorney  general's  office,  we 
passed  on  to  members  of  General  DeWitt's  staff,  simply  because  they 
had  requested  us  to  do  so.   I  doubt  that  it  was  of  importance  to 
them,  because  they  had  far  better  sources  of  information  in  the 
FBI,  the  Immigration  Service,  and  Treasury  agents.   I  doubt  that 
we  told  the  army  officers  anything  that  they  did  not  already  know, 
with  one  exception.   This  was  information  as  to  the  exact  parcels 
of  land  which  were  in  possession  of  the  Japanese  in  December,  1941 
and  January,  1942.   This  information  was  developed  through  the 
following  occurrences. 


228 


Olney:   The  army  was  well  aware  that  there  were  many  vital  military  instal 
lations  and  many  key  civilian  facilities  needed  in  the  re-armament 
program  which  had  Japanese  living  next  to  them  or  at  least  very 
close.   The  army  did  not  know  whether  these  Japanese  were  aliens  or 
American  citizens  and  was  still  less  able  to  distinguish  between 
those  who  were  loyal  to  the  United  States  and  those  with  strong 
affinities  or  allegiance  to  the  Japanese  empire.   In  the  very  first 
meetings  that  we  in  the  attorney  general's  office  had  with  army 
officers  following  Pearl  Harbor,  they  expressed  their  concern  about 
this  matter  and  they  asked  about  the  possibility  of  using  state  laws 
if  any  were  available  to  break  up  this  proximity. 

We  gave  immediate  attention  to  this  and  concluded  that  the  en 
forcement  of  the  Alien  Land  Law  might  produce  the  desired  result  in 
at  least  some  instances.  The  law  provided  that  if  agricultural  land 
came  into  the  ownership  of  an  alien  ineligible  for  American  citizen 
ship,  the  land  would  be  forfeited  and  would  escheat  to  the  state. 
Inquiry  convinced  us  that  some  of  the  agricultural  land  near  some 
of  the  important  strategic  installations  was,  in  fact,  owned  by 
Japanese  aliens  ineligible  for  citizenship  and,  hence,  was  subject 
to  escheat  proceedings  and  the  ouster  of  those  in  present  possession. 

Consequently,  Attorney  General  Earl  Warren  called  a  conference  of 
sheriffs  and  district  attorneys  on  the  subject  of  Alien  Land  Law 
enforcement,  which  was  held  in  the  State  Building  in  San  Francisco 
on  February  2,  1942.  His  original  intention  had  been  to  invite 
only  the  district  attorneys  and  sheriffs  of  those  few  counties  where 
we  thought  it  was  likely  that  there  was  a  provable  case.  But  at  the 
suggestion  of  the  army  and  navy  and  other  federal  authorities,  he 
expanded  the  list  of  invitees  to  include  the  district  attorneys  and 
sheriffs  from  all  counties  where  the  federal  government  felt  there 
was  a  security  problem.   This  did  not  include  all  of  California's 
fifty-eight  counties,  but  nevertheless,  the  meeting  was  a  large  one. 
At  the  conference,  it  soon  became  evident  that  neither  the  sheriff 
nor  the  district  attorney  had  information  as  to  who  was  occupying 
what  agricultural  land  and  where  the  ownership  lay,  but  all  agreed 
that  each  county  had  one  official  who  did  have  precisely  this  infor 
mation,  and  that  was  the  county  agricultural  agent.  His  duties  kept 
him  in  constant  contact  with  all  the  agricultural  lands  of  his 
county  and  with  their  occupants  and  owners.   It  was  concluded,  there 
fore,  that  with  the  assistance  of  the  district  attorneys  and  sher 
iffs,  full  information  about  Japanese  land  occupancy  could  be  secured 
from  each  county  agricultural  agent  and  forwarded  to  the  attorney 
general's  office  for  transmission  to  the  army. 

To  carry  out  this  program,  we  in  the  attorney  general's  office 
secured  a  set  of  maps  of  each  county  on  a  scale  large  enough  to 
make  it  possible  to  indicate  with  respect  to  each  parcel  whether  it 
was  or  was  not  owned  or  occupied  by  Japanese.   The  maps  were  on  a 


229 


Olney:    uniform  scale  and  it  usually  took  three  or  four  sheets  to  cover  a 
single  county.   The  maps  for  each  county  were  sent  to  the  district 
attorney  and  sheriff  and  they,  in  conference  with  the  local  agri 
cultural  agents,  marked  each  parcel  of  agricultural  land  which  was 
occupied  or  owned  by  Japanese,  and  with  this  information  the  maps 
were  then  returned  to  the  attorney  general's  office.   Of  course,  the 
maps  could  not  show  who  was  a  citizen  and  who  was  not  or  where  the 
occupants'  loyalties  lay. 

It  had  been  our  intention  in  gathering  this  information  to  use  it 
in  deciding  where  and  against  whom  escheat  proceedings  should  be 
filed  for  Alien  Land  Law  violation.   This  program  was  carried  out  as 
rapidly  as  possible.   The  Alien  Land  Law  cases  were  placed  under  my 
supervision  and  I  assigned  Sherrill  Halbert  to  handle  them  (Sherrill 
Halbert  later  became  a  judge  of  the  Superior  Court  of  Stanislaus 
County  and  in  the  1950s  became  a  judge  of  the  United  States  District 
Court  for  the  Northern  District  of  California) .   A  number  of  escheat 
proceedings  involving  lands  adjacent  to  strategic  installations  were 
filed  and  pressed  to  a  successful  conclusion,  taking  their  control 
and  ownership  out  of  the  hands  of  enemy  aliens.   Later  on  the  program 
was  expanded  into  one  of  general  enforcement  of  the  Alien  Land  Law, 
with  the  resulting  escheat  of  large  land  areas  without  regard  to 
whether  they  were  or  were  not  near  military  or  other  important  instal 
lations. 

The  county  maps  which  had  been  prepared  by  the  county  agricultural 
agents,  the  district  attorneys,  and  sheriffs  for  use  in  the  program 
for  the  enforcement  of  the  Alien  Land  Law,  when  received  in  the 
attorney  general's  office  and  put  together,  disclosed  a  situation 
with  respect  to  Japanese  land  occupancy  which  none  of  us  had  ever 
suspected.   The  maps  disclosed  that  from  Point  Reyes  south,  virtually 
every  feasible  landing  beach,  air  field,  power  house,  oil  field, 
water  reservoir  or  pumping  plant,  radio  station,  and  other  points  of 
strategic  military  importance  had  several  and  usually  a  considerable 
number  of  Japanese-occupied  properties  in  their  immediate  vicinity. 
The  same  was  true  with  respect  to  military  camps  and  other  defense 
installations . 

While  the  location  of  many  of  these  Japanese  properties  was  un 
doubtedly  mere  coincidence,  it  did  seem  clear  to  us  that  the  location 
of  others  was  not.   This  seemed  apparent  because  while  all  or  prac 
tically  all  of  these  Japanese  were  ostensibly  engaged  in  agricultural 
pursuits,  there  were  a  number  of  large  agricultural  areas  having  only 
a  few  strategic  points  in  them,  and  the  maps  disclosed  that  in  such 
areas  the  Japanese  were  congregated  at  the  strategic  points  and  at 
those  points  alone.   The  coastal  plain  of  Santa  Barbara  County  from 
Point  Conception  south  to  Ventura  was  an  -example.   This  plain,  though 
long,  is  quite  narrow  and  lies  between  the  Santa  Barbara  Mountains  and 
the  sea.   Throughout  its  length,  it  was  subject  to  intensive  cultiva 
tion  and  all  parts  are  equally  open  to  cultivation  and  agricultural 


230 


Olney:   pursuits.   Among  the  particular  points  on  the  plain  which  were  re 
garded  as  of  strategic  importance  were  the  El  Capitain  Oil  Fields , 
Elwood  Oil  Field,  Summerland  Oil  Field,  Santa  Barbara  Airport,  and 
Santa  Barbara  Lighthouse  and  harbor  entrance.   The  Santa  Barbara 
County  maps  disclosed  that  every  one  of  these  points  was  surrounded 
by  Japanese-occupied  properties  and  that  there  were  no  Japanese  on 
the  equally  attractive  agricultural  areas  between  these  points. 

The  Santa  Inez  Valley  was  another  example.   At  the  lower  end  of 
the  valley  was  Camp  Cook,  where  the  only  armored  force  on  the  Pacific 
coast  was  stationed.   There  were  Japanese  farming  around  the  bridge 
entrances  to  the  fort,  but  there  were  no  Japanese  in  the  central  and 
upper  part  of  the  valley,  which  was  just  as  good  or  better  agricul 
tural  land.  Another  example  was  found  in  the  Santa  Maria  area. 
There  was  a  great  deal  of  productive  agricultural  land  in  the  Santa 
Maria-Guadalupe  area,  but  the  Japanese  were  not  scattered  here  and 
there.  Their  property  ringed  the  Santa  Maria  Airport  and  penetrated 
the  oil  field  around  Orcutt. 

We  became  much  concerned  about  these  patterns  of  Japanese  land 
occupancy.   It  seemed  impossible  that  they  could  be  the  result  of 
coincidence  alone.   This  ringing  or  blanketing  by  Japanese  of 
strategic  points  throughout  the  state,  we  believed,  must  have  had 
some  plan  and  direction  behind  it.   We  were  thoroughly  convinced 
that  the  Japanese  population  in  general  was  unaware  that  there  was 
any  pattern  to  their  land  occupancy  and  ownership.   The  idea  of  a 
giant  conspiracy  was  too  preposterous  and  was  never  entertained.   In 
the  attorney  general's  office  we  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
explanation  of  these  patterns  was  really  quite  simple  and  that  it 
lay  in  the  manner  in  which  Japanese  society  in  California  was  organ 
ized.   At  that  time  the  Japanese  population  in  California  was  very 
thoroughly  organized.   There  were  a  large  number  of  organizations 
covering  every  branch  of  life.   There  were  Japanese  agricultural, 
commercial,  educational,  social,  religious,  and  patriotic  associa 
tions  in  every  Japanese  community.   Almost  every  Japanese  in  the 
state  was  included  in  one  or  more  of  these  organizations.   Although 
the  several  organizations  in  Japanese  communities  were  concerned 
with  different  fields  of  activity,  they  were  all  quite  closely  inte 
grated  by  means  of  interlocking  directors  and  officers,  honorary 
advisers,  and  interlocking  membership  among  the  ordinary  members. 
Furthermore,  their  leaders  were  seldom  selected  by  a  democratic 
process.   The  leadership  was  usually  self -perpetuating,  selecting 
their  successors  on  the  basis  of  special  fitness. 

At  the  top  of  this  organizational  pyramid  was  the  Japanese  Associa 
tion  of  America  in  Northern  California  and  the  Japanese  Central 
Association  in  Southern  California.   Their  connection  with  the 
Japanese  government  had  always  been  very  close.   When  the  Japanese 


231 


Olney:   Association  of  America  was  organized  many  years  before,  its  by-laws 
provided:   "Article  3:   This  association  is  organized  by  the  local 
Japanese  association  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Japanese  Consulate 
General  of  San  Francisco."  The  aid  of  one  or  another  of  these  associa 
tions  was  usually  invoked,  according  to  the  information  we  received, 
when  a  Japanese  farmer  wanted  to  acquire  agricultural  property. 
Inquiry  would  be  made  of  the  association  as  to  the  location  of  avail 
able  parcels  of  land.   The  associations  had  such  information  and  it 
would  have  been  easy  for  the  association  officials  to  manipulate 
these  inquiries  and  acquisitions  according  to  a  general  plan.   We 
had  no  proof  of  this,  but  we  believed,  nevertheless,  that  it  was  the 
explanation  of  the  patterns  disclosed  by  the  maps. 

There  was  plenty  of  evidence  that  the  Japanese  Associations,  as 
organizations,  had  supported  and  provided  aid  for  the  military  cam 
paigns  of  the  Japanese  empire.   This  support  had  been  publicized  in 
Japanese  papers  throughout  California.   Some  of  the  newspaper  items, 
in  translation,  are  as  follows: 

"March  13,  1941.   Thirty-two  bales  of  tin  foil  were 
shipped  to  Japan  through  the  Japanese  Consulate  General 
and  were  contributed  by  the  Japanese  Associations  of 
Fresno  County,  Kern  County,  Delano,  and  San  Bernardino." 

"July  6,  1941.   Central  California  Japanese  Associa 
tion  announces  the  collection  and  transmission  to  the 
war  ministry  of  the  sum  of  $3,542.05." 

"March  6,  1938.   G.  Yoshida,  San  Francisco  Japanese 
Association,  yesterday  sent  400  pounds  of  tin  foil, 
making  a  record  total  of  2,800  pounds  of  tin  foil  which 
he  has  collected,  according  to  the  records  of  the  Con 
sulate  General's  office." 

The  Japanese  Veterans  Association,  which  was  always  highly 
militaristic,  was  similarly  engaged: 

"March  20,  1941.   It  is  announced  that  the  War 
Veterans  Associations  in  Japan,  Germany,  and  Italy, 
in  keeping  with  the  spirit  of  the  Axis  treaty,  have 
formed  joint  and  advisory  committees  to  aid  and 
establish  the  new  world  order.   There  are  three  and 
a  half  million  veterans  and  reservists  headed  by 
General  Imei  who  have  pledged  their  cooperation  to 
Axis  aims . " 


232 


Olney:         "July  6,  1941.   The  Japanese  Veterans  Association 
of  America,  in  its  sixty-sixth  meeting,  reported  the 
collection  of  $5,968.00,  making  a  total  of  829,440.34 
yen  collected  and  transmitted  to  Japan  for  the  use  of 
the  military  services,  the  collection  being  from 
Japanese  organizations  in  the  following  places:  Chico; 
Monterey;  Tulare;  Thornton;  Richmond;  Sonoma  County; 
Eden  Township;  Alameda  County;  Mar in  County;  Lodi; 
Mountain  View;  Alvarado;  San  Bonito  County;  Contra 
Costa  County;  Watsonville;  Santa  Cruz;  Redwood  City; 
Vacaville;  San  Mateo;  Bingham,  Utah;  Berkeley;  Oakland; 
San  Francisco;  Pescadero;  Salinas;  Ogden,  Utah;  Reno, 
Nevada;  Honeyville;  Rock  Springs,  Wyoming;  Idaho  Falls, 
Idaho;  Salt  Lake  City." 

The  item  also  announced  that  during  the  five  years  since  the  out 
break  of  the  China  incident,  the  organization  had  collected  850,000 
yen  for  the  aid  of  Japanese  soldiers  and  a  tremendous  number  of 
bundles  for  the  Japanese  soldiers  overseas.   At  one  time,  the  associa 
tion  is  said  to  have  numbered  eight  thousand  members.   After  the 
freezing  of  Japanese  assets  by  order  of  President  Roosevelt,  the 
Japanese  Veterans  Association  was  dissolved.   Some  three  hundred 
representatives  were  reported  to  have  been  present  and  the  meeting 
closed  with  the  showing  of  a  Japanese  motion  picture  entitled 
"Flaming  Skies." 

It  was  the  Japanese  Veterans  Association  that  sponsored  the  tour 
of  Major  G.  Tanaka  of  the  Japanese  army  and  a  member  of  the  Army 
General  Staff,  who  arrived  in  San  Francisco  on  January  1,  1941  with 
full  uniform,  sword,  and  metals  and  toured  the  state,  lecturing 
before  various  Japanese  groups,  eventually  returning  to  Japan  via 
New  York.   While  here,  he  is  reported  to  have  said,  "Japan  and  the 
United  States  will  go  to  war  this  autumn." 

It  seemed  quite  evident  that  the  fanatical  nationalism  typified 
by  Japanese  Shinto  had  filtered  into  and  taken  hold  of  the  leader 
ship  of  the  principal  Japanese  associations  in  California.   Men  with 
such  ideas  could  easily  have  steered  Japanese  agriculturalists  to 
locations  close  to  strategic  installations  where  they  might  be  of 
use  in  the  event  of  the  expected  hostilities. 

Of  course,  we  passed  on  to  the  army  the  information  disclosed  by 
the  maps  and  such  information  as  we  were  able  to  gather  about  the 
Japanese  associations  and  organizations. 

Long  prior  to  Pearl  Harbor,  the  77th  Congress  had  authorized  a 
select  committee  to  investigate  national  defense  migration.   The 
committee  was  formed  pursuant  to  House  Resolution  113,  "A  resolution 
to  inquire  further  into  the  interstate  migration  of  citizens, 


233 


Olney:   emphasizing  the  present  and  potential  consequences  of  migration 

caused  by  the  national  defense  program."  The  chairman  of  the  com 
mittee  was  Congressman  John  Tolan  of  California.   The  committee  was 
particularly  concerned  with  the  wholesale  migration  of  workers  and 
their  families  from  the  states  of  Louisiana,  Alabama,  and  Mississippi 
to  work  in  war  industries  in  other  parts  of  the  country.   The  com 
mittee  was  holding  hearings  on  this  subject  in  New  Orleans  at  the 
time  of  Pearl  Harbor.  With  the  outbreak  of  war  and  the  exclusion  of 
many  people  from  military  zones  along  the  Pacific  coast,  the  committee 
decided  to  hold  hearings  in  a  number  of  cities  in  the  affected  areas. 

In  San  Francisco,  the  committee  set  hearings  for  February  21  and 
23,  1942,  on  the  subject  of  "Problems  of  Evacuation  of  Enemy  Aliens 
and  Others  from  Prohibited  Zones."  Attorney  General  Earl  Warren, 
among  others,  was  invited  to  testify.   By  the  time  the  committee 
opened  its  hearings  on  February  21st,  the  inadequacy  of  the  ninety- 
nine  prohibited  zones  and  two  restricted  zones  designated  by  the 
attorney  general  at  the  request  of  General  DeWitt  and  which  applied 
only  to  enemy  aliens  and  not  to  American  citizens  had  become  appar 
ent  to  everyone.   With  the  federal  authorities  and  state  authorities 
unable  to  distinguish  dangerously  disloyal  Japanese  from  those  who 
were  loyal,  and  with  convincing  evidence  that  the  Japanese  population 
did  include  an  unknown  number  of  citizens  as  well  as  noncitizens 
whose  loyalties  were  with  the  Japanese  empire,  the  question  had 
already  been  raised  as  to  what  further  measures  were  needed  in  the 
national  defense.   The  attorney  general  was  very  reluctant  to  take  a 
position  on  this  matter  and  he  did  so  only  after  consulting  with  the 
sheriffs  and  district  attorneys  with  whom  he  had  been  working.   They 
were  unanimous  in  believing  that  it  was  impossible  to  distinguish 
disloyal  from  loyal  Japanese,  either  among  those  who  were  aliens  or 
those  who  were  citizens,  and  that  the  only  way  to  provide  adequate 
security  for  the  vital  areas  of  California  and  the  rest  of  the  Pacific 
coast  was  to  exclude  all  persons  of  Japanese  descent,  regardless  of 
citizenship,  from  the  area. 

Since  the  attorney  general  had  come  to  the  same  conclusion  himself, 
he  decided  it  was  the  only  position  he  could  take  and  that  he  would 
have  to  accept  the  committee's  invitation  to  testify.   In  his  appear 
ance  before  the  committee  and  in  an  extension  of  his  testimony  filed 
after  the  hearing,  the  attorney  general  gave  the  committee  such 
information  as  we  had  about  Japanese  landownership ,  their  location 
as  shown  by  the  maps  of  the  counties,  Japanese  organizations,  and, 
indeed,  all  the  information  we  had  been  able  to  compile.   He  also 
explained  why  we  found  it  impossible  to  distinguish  disloyal  from 
loyal  Japanese.   However,  in  discussing  the  nature  of  the  danger 
that  we  faced,  he  limited  himself  to  the  subject  of  possible  sabotage. 
No  mention  at  all  was  made  of  the  possibility  of  a  strike  by  Japanese 
naval  and  air  power.   This  was  deliberate.   The  military  believed  that 
the  Japanese  did  not  know  how  seriously  weak  our  coastal  defenses 


234 


Olney:   actually  were  and  they  wanted  nothing  said  in  public  that  would 

suggest  that  anyone  in  authority  in  this  country  believed  that  such 
a  strike  was  feasible.   Accordingly,  he  spoke  only  of  the  danger  of 
sabotage.   Most  of  his  listeners  were  acutely  aware  that  he  was 
really  referring  to  the  far  greater  and  more  serious  danger  of 
actual  attack  from  the  sea.   Interestingly  enough,  while  the  com 
mittee  was  holding  its  second  day  of  hearings  on  February  23,  a 
Japanese  submarine  surfaced  and  shelled  the  oil  installation  at 
Goleta. 

I  have  never  believed  that  the  Tolan  Committee  hearings  were 
helpful  to  anyone.   The  basic  question  to  be  decided  was  whether 
the  safety  and  security  of  the  United  States  required  that  all  per 
sons  of  Japanese  descent  be  excluded  from  the  Pacific  coastal  areas. 
This  was  strictly  a  military  question.   It  was  pointless  for  the 
committee  to  call  local  civilian  officials  and  leaders  to  express 
their  opinions  in  public  as  to  what  should  be  done.   Witnesses 
could  not  be  called  from  the  military  and  even  the  committee  realized 
they  should  not  be  called  to  testify.   The  hearings,  in  my  opinion, 
were  mere  congressional  meddling. 

Under  all  the  circumstances,  what  could  the  military  do?  They 
knew  that  the  Japanese  had  the  capability  for  a  major  naval  and 
aerial  strike  at  our  aircraft  factories,  shipyards,  and  naval  bases — 
facilities  which  were  absolutely  essential  for  the  rebuilding  of 
American  military  and  naval  strength.   They  had  to  assume  that  such 
an  attack  might  well  have  been  planned  long  ago  as  a  follow-up  in 
the  event  the  Japanese  achieved  a  high  degree  of  success  at  Pearl 
Harbor.   They  knew  the  temporary  helplessness  of  the  United  States 
Navy  and  the  weakness  of  our  coastal  defense.   They  knew  that  such 
naval  strength  as  we  had  left  had  to  be  devoted  to  keeping  open  the 
supply  lines  to  Australia,  where  American  troops  had  to  be  shipped 
and  supplied  with  all  of  their  armament  to  stop  the  Japanese  attempt 
to  overrun  that  continent.   They  knew  that  if  the  Japanese  attacked 
the  Pacific  coast,  it  would  be  a  desperate  affair,  and  in  the  middle 
would  be  122,000  Japanese  civilians  whose  sentiments  and  loyalties 
it  was  impossible  to  gauge  and  whose  conduct  as  individuals  was  im 
possible  to  predict.   Furthermore,  they  knew  that  if  any  action  at 
all  was  to  be  taken,  it  had  to  be  taken  immediately.   If  the  Japanese 
were  going  to  attack  or  even  raid  the  coast,  it  had  to  be  very,  very 
soon.   The  Japanese  would  not  and  could  not  wait  until  we  had  built 
up  our  defenses  and  repaired  our  damaged  fleet.   These  are  all  obvious 
considerations  that  must  have  gone  into  the  decision  which  was  finally 
made. 

On  March  2,  1942,  only  eighty-five  days  after  the  bombing  of  Pearl 
Harbor,  General  DeWitt,  under  authority  of  President  Roosevelt's 
Executive  Order  no.  9066,  issued  his  order  requiring  the  exclusion 
from  the  coastal  states  of  California,  Oregon,  and  Washington  of  all 


235 


Olney:   persons  of  Japanese  descent,  whether  aliens  or  American  citizens. 

The  issuance  of  this  order  had  the  full  approval  of  the  War  Depart 
ment  and  of  the  Roosevelt  administration.   In  California,  it  was 
approved  almost  unanimously  by  the  law  enforcement  officers  of  the 
state  and  it  had  very  strong  popular  support  as  well.  However,  it 
was  a  military  and  not  a  civilian  decision.   It  was  believed  to  be 
necessary  in  order  to  meet  an  immediate  and  major  danger  to  the 
safety  of  the  country.   I  was  convinced  then  and  am  convinced  now 
that  it  was  motivated  by  nothing  else. 

Every  effort  was  made  to  put  General  DeWitt's  order  into  immediate 
effect.   Time  was  vital.   The  sole  purpose  of  the  order  was  to  get 
the  Japanese  out  of  the  area  before  an  attack,  raid,  or  other  trouble 
could  materialize.   The  shortness  of  the  notice  and  the  brevity  of 
the  time  to  allow  for  preparation  caused  great  hardship  and  loss  to 
many  Japanese  and  their  families,  but  the  requirements  of  time  made 
such  hardships  unavoidable.   There  was  some  quite  unnecessary  un 
pleasantness  that  accompanied  the  Japanese  exodus.   Jeering  signs 
were  occasionally  displayed.   A  few  demogogic  radio  commentators  had 
poisonous  words  to  say.   Some  very  unfortunate  remarks  can  even  be 
attributed  to  the  military.   General  DeWitt  was  quoted  (whether 
correctly  or  not,  I  do  not  know)  as  having  said  on  one  occasion, 
"The  Japs  are  an  enemy  race,"  and  on  another,  "Once  a  Jap,  always  a 
Jap."  But  these  were  really  isolated  incidents.   Calif ornians,  on 
the  whole,  had  great  sympathy  for  the  Japanese  and  great  regret  for 
the  hardships  that  they  must  undergo.   There  were  countless  acts  of 
kindness  towards  these  people  who  were  being  forced  from  their  homes. 

General  DeWitt's  exclusion  order  went  no  farther  than  was  neces 
sary.   It  did  not  order  the  Japanese  into  concentration  camps.   It 
only  excluded  them  from  the  Pacific  coast  states  and  left  them  free 
to  go  anywhere  else.   Most  of  those  who  had  the  means  did  move  to 
other  states  and  settle  there,  but  the  majority  of  the  Japanese 
lacked  the  means  to  relocate  themselves  in  other  places  of  their 
own  choice,  and  many  of  the  inland  states  objected  strenuously  to 
receiving  large  numbers  of  people  who  had  been  removed  from  the 
Pacific  coast  states  as  war  risks.  The  only  possible  alternative 
was  for  the  federal  government  to  provide  relocation  camps  in  which 
the  displaced  Japanese  could  live  for  the  duration  of  the  war.   I 
had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  these  relocation  camps  and  never 
had  the  opportunity  of  visiting  one,  but  I  do  know  that  the  records 
show  they  were  administered  humanely  and  efficiently  and  with  no 
more  restraints  on  the  occupants  than  the  circumstances  required. 
It  is  in  my  opinion  a  complete  falsehood  to  liken  them  to  the  con 
centration  camps  of  the  Germans  or  the  prison-labor  camps  of  the 
communists. 

During  the  thirty-three  years  since  the  end  of  the  war  with 
Japan,  there  has  been  mounting  criticism  of  Executive  Order  no. 
9066  and  the  relocation  of  Japanese-Americans  which  was  carried 


236 


Olney:   out  under  its  authority.   Some  of  this  criticism  has  come  from 

persons  who  supported  the  program  at  the  time  and  were  active  in 
its  implementation.   For  example,  in  1972  the  California  Historical 
Society  published  a  book  entitled  Executive  Order  9066;  The  Intern 
ment  of  110,000  Japanese-Americans.   The  book  consists  of  photographs, 
for  the  most  part,  taken  by  Dorothea  Lange  and  other  obviously 
talented  photographers.   They  portray  the  hardships  of  the  relocation 
program  in  a  most  vivid  and  moving  way.   No  one  can  question  the 
authenticity  of  the  pictures  or  the  reality  of  the  hardship  and 
suffering  which  they  portray,  but  they  have  no  relevance  to  the 
basic  question  as  to  whether  the  exclusion  of  the  Japanese  was  or 
seemed  to  be  a  military  necessity.   The  book  includes  an  introduc 
tion  written  by  Edison  Tomimaro  Uno  of  San  Francisco,  who  describes 
himself  as  an  American  of  Japanese  ancestry  whose  earliest  recollec 
tions  are  of  a  desert  relocation  camp  such  as  are  portrayed  in  the 
book.   He  finds  the  pictures  to  be  powerful  reminders  of  his  own 
experiences  of  over  four  years  of  camp  life  and  of  the  experiences 
of  his  family  and  parents.   He  writes: 

"It  was  not  until  the  winter  of  1969  that  this  tide 
of  Asian- American  consciousness  reached  its  peak.   It  was 
not  until  the  pilgrimage  to  Manzanar,  the  desert  camp  site 
some  three  hundred  miles  northeast  of  Los  Angeles,  that 
these  previously  inchoate  feelings  found  a  concrete  ex 
pression.   It  was  not  until  the  moment  when  we  glimpsed 
the  site  itself,  when  we  saw  again  its  desert  barrenness, 
the  tattered  remnants  of  the  barracks,  the  tufts  of  sage 
brush  and  mesquite,  until  we  felt  again  the  sharp,  early 
morning  desert  wind,  that  we  fully  perceived  what  was  in 
the  offing  for  us,  that  we  perceived  how  tragic  the  past 
really  was . 

We  had  been  too  busy  —  too  busy  repairing  our  lives, 
too  busy  trying  to  catch  up  with  careers  cut  short,  too 
busy  trying  to  make  up  for  years  snatched  out  of  our 
lives  —  yet  with  full  enthusiasm  to  realize  the  Amer 
ican  dream. 

Perhaps  some  of  us  were  ashamed  that  it  had  even 
happened.  We  were  like  the  victim  of  a  rape  —  we 
could  not  even  bear  to  speak  of  the  assault ,  of  the 
unspeakable  crime.   Thus,  for  many  years  we  had  not 
even  spoken  of  our  imprisonment.   And  when  we  did 
speak  of  it,  we  were  guarded.  We  dared  not  fully 
reveal  the  depths  of  our  feeling  about  it. 

In  fact,  we  were  inclined  in  some  ways  to  blame 
ourselves.   Some  Nisei  (U.S.  citizens  by  birth)  had 
even  gone  so  far  as  to  suggest  that  we  had  been 


237 


Olney:      incarcerated  because  we  had  not  made  ourselves  known 
to  our  Caucasian  neighbors,  that  we  should  have  been 
more  open,  less  clannish,  that  we  should  have  gone  to 
the  length  of  becoming  two  hundred  percent  Americans. 
Then,  they  reasoned,  the  Caucasians  would  have  known 
us  and  trusted  us  and  would  have  seen  that  our  loyalty 
lay  first,  last,  and  always  with  America.   For  such 
people,  the  truth  was  simply  too  awesome  to  be  faced. 
The  truth  was -that  our  unjust  imprisonment  was  the 
result  of  two  closely  related  emotions:  racism  and 
hysteria. . .History  must  be  written  by  those  who  lived 
it.  We  must  give  full  recognition  to  the  facts  that 
were  responsible  for  such  an  outrage  against  the 
United  States  Constitution.  Racism,  economic  and 
political  opportunism  were  the  root  causes  of  this 
crime  that  is  now  a  part  of  our  American  heritage. 
This,  our  legacy,  is  a  reminder  to  all  Americans  that 
it  can  happen  again." 

The  book  also  includes  an  epilogue  by  the  late  Tom  C.  Clark, 
Associate  Justice  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court.   In  it,  he 
writes: 

"Soon  after  Pearl  Harbor,  at  the  instance  of  the 
Attorney  General  of  the  United  States,  I  was  appointed 
Civilian  Coordinator  for  General  John  DeWitt,  Commanding 
General,  Western  Defense  Command,  United  States  Army. 
It  was  his  duty  to  protect  our  West  Coast  from  subver 
sion  as  well  as  invasion,  and  it  was  my  task  to  be  his 
'go-between'  with  the  public.   Following  my  appointment, 
I  was  deluged  by  demands  that  regardless  of  citizenship, 
every  person  of  Japanese  descent  must  be  removed  from 
the  West  Coast. 

In  the  beginning,  in  an  effort  to  force  all  removal, 
a  curfew  was  instituted. . .but  the  threatening  public 
attitude  reached  a  fever  heat  that  would  permit  nothing 
less  than  total  mass  relocation.  Moreover,  as  Civilian 
Coordinator,  I  found  a  complete  lack  of  understanding, 
respect,  and  regard  for  our  fellow  Japanese-Americans 
in  the  very  communities  where  they  were  born,  where 
they  were  reared,  and  where  they  worked.   Some  said 
that  they  were  too  clannish,  too  race-conscious,  too 
emperor-oriented;  that  they  would  not  cultivate  American 
ways  and  could  not  be  assimilated.   But  mutual  under 
standing  and  respect  is  not  a  one-way  street  —  to  be 
loved  and  to  be  respected,  one  must  himself  love  and  be 
respectful.   Racial  hatred  coupled  with  economic  and 


238 


Olney:      political  opportunism  kept  hearts  closed  and  fear 

predominant;  it  was  a  sad  day  in  our  Constitutional 
history. . .Despite  the  unequivocal  language  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  that  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  shall  not  be  suspended,  and  despite 
the  Fifth  Amendment's  command  that  no  person  shall 
be  deprived  of  life,  liberty  or  property  without 
due  process  of  law,  both  of  these  Constitutional 
safeguards  were  denied  by  military  action  under 
Executive  Order  9066.  While  the  Supreme  Court  in 
Hirabayashi  vs.  U.S.,  820  U.S.  81  (1943),  and 
Korematsu  vs.  U.S.,  323  U.S.  214  (1944),  gave  the 
Fifth  Amendment  some  lip  service  on  the  basis  that 
there  might  have  been  some  saboteurs  among  the 
thousands  of  persons  of  Japanese  descent  who  were 
incarcerated,  it  wholly  ignored  the  fundamental 
principle  that  a  free  society  judges  by  individual 
acts,  not  by  ancestry.   Even  though  some  malefactors 
might  have  been  present  —  which  was  never  proven  — 
the  liberty  of  the  many  cannot  be  forfeited  because 
of  the  guilt  of  the  few.   Indeed,  the  Department  of 
Justice  successfully  handled  a  similar  problem  in 
volving  persons  of  Italian  and  German  extraction, 
dealing  with  them  on  an  individual  basis  rather  than 
by  mass  incarceration.   The  stubborn  fact  is,  our 
fellow  Japanese-American  citizens  lost  their  liberty 
simply  and  only  because  of  their  ancestry." 

Even  the  late  Chief  Justice  Earl  Warren,  who  as  attorney  general 
of  California  in  1942  had  urged,  as  representative  of  the  peace 
officers  and  district  attorneys  of  the  state  before  the  Tolan  Com 
mittee,  the  exclusion  from  the  coastal  areas  of  all  Japanese  regard 
less  of  citizenship,  seems  to  have  changed  his  mind  in  later  years. 
In  his  recently  published  memoirs  he  has  written: 

"I  have  since  deeply  regretted  the  removal  order  and 
my  own  testimony  advocating  it,  because  it  was  not  in 
keeping  with  our  American  concept  of  freedom  and  the 
rights  of  citizens.  Whenever  I  thought  of  the  innocent 
little  children  who  were  torn  from  home,  school,  friends 
and  congenial  surroundings,  I  was  conscience  stricken. 
It  was  wrong  to  act  so  impulsively,  without  positive 
evidence  of  disloyalty,  even  though  we  felt  we  had  a  good 
motive  in  the  security  of  our  state.   It  demonstrates  the 
cruelty  of  war  when  fear,  get-tough  military  psychology, 
propaganda,  and  racial  antagonism  combine  with  one's 
responsibility  for  public  security  to  produce  such  acts. 
I  have  always  believed  I  had  no  prejudice  against  the 


239 


Olney:      Japanese  as  such,  except  that  directly  spawned  by 

Pearl  Harbor  and  its  aftermath.   As  District  Attorney, 
I  had  great  respect  for  people  of  Japanese  ancestry, 
because  during  my  years  in  that  office,  they  created 
no  law  enforcement  problems.   Although  we  had  a  size 
able  Japanese  population,  neither  the  young  nor  the 
old  violated  the  law." 

% 

Elsewhere  in  his  memoirs,  the  late  Chief  Justice  writes: 

"In  the  meantime,  Japanese  military  successes 
continued  throughout  the  Pacific  basin.   One  of  our 
units  composed  of  Californians  was  decimated  and 
captured  at  Bataan  and  Corregidor,  and  our  people 
were  outraged  by  much  publicized  stories  of  the 
tortures  and  sufferings  of  captured  U.S.  soldiers. 
American  propaganda  portrayed  the  Japanese  as 
having  adopted  the  Hitlerian  theory  of  a  master 
race,  departing  from  it  only  in  asserting  that  they 
were  the  chosen  ones,  not  the  Germans.   Published 
stories  of  their  savagery  and  sadism  charged  the 
atmosphere." 

These  are  several  severe  strictures  on  the  decision-makers  of 
1942  in  the  military  and  the  federal  civil  administration  and  on 
the  people  of  California  in  general.  With  all  due  respect,  I  must 
challenge  their  validity. 

In  the  first  place,  they  are  factually  inaccurate.  They  picture 
the  exclusion  order  and  the  relocation  program  as  a  "get-tough" 
military  policy  carried  out  at  the  demand  of  an  hysterical  citizenry, 
stirred  up  and  boiling  over  as  the  result  of  years  of  anti- Japanese 
agitation  and  more  recent  wartime  atrocity  propaganda.   That  picture 
will  not  stand  scrutiny. 

It  is  true  that  during  the  first  two  decades  of  this  century,  and 
before,  there  had  been  much  agitation  in  California  against  the 
Japanese,  some  of  which  was  disgraceful  and  cruel  indeed.   This  was 
the  period  of  the  Oriental  Exclusion  Act  at  the  federal  level  and 
the  Alien  Land  Laws  at  the  state  level.   Many  organizations,  such 
as  the  Native  Sons  of  the  Golden  West,  urged  boycotts  and  other 
measures  against  the  Japanese.   I  remember  that  when  my  father  was 
an  Associate  Justice  on  the  California  Supreme  Court  in  the  early 
twenties,  my  mother  received  a  letter  of  reproof  from  the  N.S.G.W. 
because  she  had  parked  her  car  in  front  of  a  Japanese  market  and 
made  purchases  there. 


240 


Olney:   But  this  sort  of  thing  was  pretty  much  ancient  history  by  the  1930s. 
There  were  still  occasional  articles  or  radio  broadcasts  inveighing 
against  the  Japanese.  William  Randolph  Hearst  continued  to  ride  his 
hobbyhorse  of  "The  Yellow  Peril"  in  his  newspapers,  and  the  N.S.G.W. 
and  the  Associated  Farmers  continued  their  support  of  the  Alien  Land 
Laws.   But  the  great  majority  of  Calif ornians  were  unimpressed  and 
disinterested.  There  was  an  increasing  willingness  to  accept  Japan 
ese  on  the  basis  of  equality.   This  was  due,  in  part,  to  the  growth 
of  a  more  tolerant  spirit  generally  and  even  more  to  the  Nisei 
educated  in  American  schools  who  proved  themselves  to  be  so  intelli 
gent,  competent,  friendly,  and  attractive.   During  the  years  1927  to 
1942,  I  was  employed  most  of  the  time  on  criminal  cases,  either  in  a 
district  attorney's  office  or  the  office  of  the  attorney  general. 
I  cannot  now  recall  a  single  hostile  incident  against  the  Japanese 
during  those  years.   There  may  have  been  some,  but  if  so,  they  cannot 
have  been  serious  or  I  would  remember  them. 

A  more  persuasive  piece  of  evidence  that  there  was  no  great  amount 
of  hostility  to  the  Japanese  in  California  during  this  period  is  the 
demonstrable  fact  that  they  did  not  have  the  government  on  their 
backs.   Had  there  been  widespread,  deep,  under-the-surface  hatred  or 
fear  of  the  Japanese,  they  could  not  have  escaped  the  attention  of 
the  security  and  investigative  agencies  of  the  federal  and  state 
governments.   Their  organizations  would  have  been  infiltrated;  their 
meetings,  movements,  and  activities  would  have  been  covered  and 
reported;  and  extensive  dossiers  on  their  leaders  would  have  been 
compiled.   Yet  none  of  this  happened.   It  is  obvious  that  there  were 
no  feelings  on  the  part  of  government  officers  or  the  public  general 
ly  that  any  such  measures  were  necessary  or  desirable.   This  is 
totally  inconsistent  with  the  idea  of  an  inflamed  populace  seething 
with  hatred  and  fear. 

When  Mr.  Justice  Clark  writes  that  following  his  appointment  as 
Civilian  Coordinator  for  General  DeWitt,  he  was  "deluged  by  demands 
that  regardless  of  citizenship,  every  person  of  Japanese  descent 
must  be  removed  from  the  West  Coast,"  I  do  not  question  his  recollec 
tion.  We  in  the  attorney  general's  office  were  deluged  too,  and  I 
in  particular,  since  I  was  assigned  to  handling  such  demands.   I 
think  half  the  crackpots  in  a  state  that  is  noted  for  its  crackpots 
came  in  to  see  me.   The  rest  were  from  organizations  like  the 
Associated  Farmers  or  other  groups  who  had  Japanese  competitors. 
To  be  sure,  they  were  numerous  and  it  did  take  time  to  see  them  all, 
as  we  had  to  do,  but  none  of  us,  not  even  Tom  Clark,  I  am  sure, 
regarded  these  people  or  their  demands  as  representative  of 
Calif ornians  as  a  whole. 

When  Chief  Justice  Warren  writes  in  his  memoirs,  "One  of  our 
units  composed  of  Californians  was  decimated  and  captured  at  Bataan 
and  Corregidor,  and  our  people  were  outraged  by  much  publicized 


241 


Olney:    stories  of  the  tortures  and  sufferings  of  captured  U.S.  soldiers. 
American  propaganda  portrayed  the  Japanese  as  having  adopted  the 
Hitlerian  theory  of  a  master  race,  departing  from  it  only  in  assert 
ing  that  they  were  the  chosen  ones,  not  the  Germans,"  he  gives  the 
impression  that  the  stories  and  pictures  of  Californian  units 
captured  on  Bataan  and  Corregidor  had  been  used  as  propaganda  to 
gain  support  for  the  exclusion  of  all  Japanese  from  the  coast. 
Executive  Order  9066  was  signed  by  the  president  on  February  19, 
1942,  and  General  DeWitt's  exclusion  order  was  issued  on  March  2nd, 
while  the  surrenders  on  Bataan  and  Corregidor  did  not  occur  until 
the  middle  of  April.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  stories  and  pictures 
of  the  surrender  and  of  the  sufferings  and  humiliations  visited  upon 
the  captured  could  have  been  used  as  propaganda  before  the  events 
occurred.  Moreover,  when  the  stories  of  the  surrender  and  the 
pictures  of  the  captives  in  their  emaciated  condition,  sometimes 
surrendering,  under  humiliating  and  even  gruesome  circumstances, 
first  appeared,  they  were  made  public  by  the  Japanese  government 
itself.   The  Japanese  were  eager  to  proclaim  to  the  world,  and  to 
the  other  nations  of  Asia  especially,  the  crushing  nature  of  their 
victories  and  to  demonstrate  the  superiority  of  the  Japanese  to  the 
weak  and  faltering  American  and  British  soldiers.   Furthermore,  the 
stories  were  true  and  the  pictures  accurate,  as  has  been  well  estab 
lished  since  the  war  ended. 

As  for  the  Japanese  belief  in  the  divinity  of  the  emperor  and  the 
divine  origins  of  the  Japanese  race,  there  can  be  no  doubt.   The 
Japanese  soldier  demonstrated  this  belief  by  both  word  and  deed  in 
every  battle  in  which  he  fought  and  the  civilian  population  did  the 
same.   On  Saipan  almost  22,000  Japanese  civilians  —  two  out  of 
three  —  perished  needlessly.   Almost  the  entire  garrison  —  at 
least  thirty  thousand  died.   All  because  of  this  faith.   It  took 
the  atom  bomb  and  the  express  order  of  the  emperor  to  break  it,  and 
even  then  the  country  was  brought  close  to  revolution  by  those  who 
persisted  in  these  ideas  and  were  determined  that  Japan  would  fight 
till  the  last  man,  woman,  and  child  were  dead  rather  than  sue  for 
peace  from  their  racial  inferiors.  The  American  newspapers  were 
certainly  right  in  proclaiming  that  the  Japanese  had  adopted  theories 
of  the  master  race  and  it  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  propaganda  in  the 
deprecatory  sense  for  them  to  have  said  so. 


242 


X  THE  ATTORNEY  GENERAL'S  OFFICE  AND  THE  FRIENDS  OF  PROGRESS 
[Interview  8:  April  27,  1972] 


Stein:   How  did  the  attorney  general's  office  get  onto  The  Friends  of 
Progress  in  the  first  place? 

Olney:   Well,  this  group,  which  was  headed  by  Robert  Noble  and  Ellis  0. 

Jones,  was  operating  openly  in  Los  Angeles  during  the  fall  of  1941. 
They  were  holding  meetings  two,  three  times  a  week  at  the  Embassy 
Auditorium  on  Figueroa  Street.   They  were  getting  sizeable  crowds 
of  people,  several  hundred  people. 

Along  about  October  or  November,  they  got  a  good  deal  of  notori 
ety  by  putting  on  a  mock  trial  of  the  President  of  the  United  States 
on  charges  of  treason.   They  had  various  witnesses  who  appeared  at 
this  trial  and  delivered  harangues  against  the  president.   They  had 
one  called  Blighted  Youth.   They  had  another,  a  war  mother  of  some 
kind,  and  all  sorts  of  people  like  that.   They  also  had  a  man  made 
up  to  look  like  President  Roosevelt,  and  even  mocked  him  by  having 
him  limp  around  with  a  cane,  sit  in  a  wheelchair,  and  things  of  this 
kind.   All  these  "witnesses"  denounced  the  president  and  then  the 
assembly,  by  shouted  vote,  convicted  him  of  treason.   This  particular 
meeting  was  covered  by  Life  magazine  with  both  text  and  pictures  of 
the  presidential  trial.   So  we  did  not  "get  onto"  The  Friends  of 
Progress.  They  were  thrust  upon  us. 

This  was  just  before  the  war  started  and  things  were  pretty  rough 
even  then.   This  group  was  openly  espousing  the  Nazi  cause.   Their 
meetings  were  full  of  praise  of  Adolph  Hitler,  whom  they  referred  to 
as  the  savior  of  the  world.   They  were  loud  in  praise  of  his  anti- 
Semitic  program.   They  urged  its  adoption  in  the  United  States.   They 
asserted  that  President  Roosevelt  was  a  Jew.   They  didn't  talk  much 
about  the  Japanese  prior  to  Pearl  Harbor;  this  was  mostly  about  the 
Germans.   None  of  the  things  that  they  were  doing  or  saying  were 
violations  of  any  state  law.   Their  activities  were  beyond  our  reach 
as  state  law  officers.  We  felt  if  it  was  anybody's  concern,  it  was 
the  federal  government's  concern. 


243 


Olney:   In  the  two  or  three  days  following  the  Japanese  attack  on  Pearl 

Harbor,  the  FBI  rounded  up  all  known  German,  Italian,  and  Japanese 
agents  all  around  the  United  States.  Arrested  at  the  same  time 
were  the  American  born  leaders  of  American  Nazi  and  fascist  propa 
ganda  organizations  like  The  Silver  Shirts,  the  German-American 
Bund,  the  Ku  Klux  Klan,  and  other  groups  who  were  espousing  the 
cause  of  our  enemies  and  continued  to  do  so  after  the  declaration 
of  war.   Among  those  arrested  were  a  half  dozen  leaders  of  The 
Friends  of  Progress,  including  Robert  Noble  and  Ellis  0.  Jones. 
The  charge  that  was  placed  against  these  people  early  in  December, 
including  Noble  and  Jones,  was  sedition,  a  violation  of  the  federal 
statutes. 

After  three  or  four  more  days,  Francis  Biddle,  who  was  the  United 
States  Attorney  General,  ordered  the  release  of  a  considerable  num 
ber  of  the  people  arrested  by  the  Bureau,  including  Noble  and  Jones 
and  the  others  of  their  group,  on  the  ground  that,  in  his  opinion, 
they  had  not  violated  any  law  of  the  United  States.   However  dis 
tasteful  their  pronouncements  and  conduct  may  have  been,  they  had 
not  been  accompanied  by  any  overt  action  against  the  United  States. 
In  his  opinion,  that  meant  that  they  were  not  to  be  arrested  or 
charged. 

Following  their  release,  Noble  and  Jones  and  The  Friends  of 
Progress  went  back  into  action  again,  same  place,  same  way,  except 
that  they  were  much  more  vitriolic  than  they  had  been  before,  and 
much  more  extreme.   This,  of  course,  was  days  and  weeks  after  the 
war  had  been  declared.   When  the  press  announced  that  our  Far  Eastern 
fleet  had  been  sunk  by  the  Japanese  in  the  Macassar  Straits,  Robert 
Noble  read  the  list  of  sunken  ships  to  an  open  meeting  of  The  Friends 
of  Progress  and  the  sinking  of  each  ship  was  loudly  cheered  and 
clapped  by  the  assemblage.   They  made  many  statements  urging  support 
for  the  Nazi  cause.   They  told  their  audience  that  the  attack  on 
Pearl  Harbor  was  fully  justified  because  the  Japanese  had  a  better 
right  to  the  Hawaiian  Islands  than  we  did,  since  there  were  more 
Japanese  in  the  Islands  than  there  were  Americans. 

This  kind  of  thing  went  on  over  a  series  of  meetings.   People  in 
Los  Angeles  were  getting  stirred  up  about  it;  they  didn't  like  it. 
Occasionally  there  would  be  a  sailor  or  soldier  or  two  who  would 
go  into  the  Embassy  Auditorium  to  one  of  these  meetings.   There  was 
danger  of  some  real  fights  and  riots.   In  February  they  published  in 
their  news  sheet  a  poem  entitled  "The  Boastful  Bastards  of  Bataan" 
forecasting  and  exulting  in  the  capture  of  MacArthur's  troops  by  the 
Japanese.   This  was  when  our  soldiers  were  at  their  last  extremity 
on  the  Bataan  Peninsula.   They  accused  General  MacArthur  of  personal 
cowardice  and  of  having  deserted  his  troops  under  fire  and  fleeing 
to  Australia  to  avoid  capture. 


244 


Olney:   Well,  to  us  this  seemed  pretty  extreme,  and  for  the  federal  govern 
ment  to  fail  to  do  anything  seemed  to  us  to  lead  to  more  trouble. 
So,  we  called  up  the  FBI  and  asked  them  if  they  were  planning  to 
take  any  action  against  this  group.  We  told  them  that  if  they  were 
going  to  act  we  did  not  want  to  get  in  their  way,  but  if  they  were 
not  going  to  act  we  would  take  action  if  we  could  find  any  state 
law  that  was  being  violated  by  these  people.   The  response  we  got 
was  that  the  opinion  of  the  attorney  general  would  not  permit  them 
to  take  any  action  and  if  we  could  find  any  way  to  lock  them  up  we 
had  their  blessing  to  go  ahead. 

We  got  the  books  down  from  the  shelves  and  looked  them  over. 
There  was  then  a  section  of  the  Penal  Code  defining  criminal  libel. 
There's  civil  libel  and  criminal  libel,  and  the  definitions  of  the 
two  are  different.   They're  defined  in  the  code.   To  maliciously 
and  falsely  make  accusations  against  another  that  injure  him  in  his 
profession  and  demean  him  is  a  violation  of  the  criminal  libel  and 
slander  statute.  Accusing  a  professional  military  man,  a  general, 
of  personal  cowardice  and  deserting  his  troops  under  fire  is  about 
as  tough  a  statement  as  you  can  make  about  him.   If  it's  made 
falsely  and  maliciously,  why,  it  clearly  comes  under  the  California 
statute. 

So,  we  made  a  little  investigation  to  find  out  who  was  respon 
sible  for  this  broadside  that  had  been  put  out  with  these  statements 
in  it.   We  developed  our  evidence  and  it  ran  back  to  Noble  and  Jones 
as  being  responsible  for  it.   One  or  two  of  the  others  had  also 
taken  part  in  its  preparation.  All  of  the  leaders  of  The  Friends 
of  Progress  had  taken  part  in  disseminating  the  literature. 

But  if  we  were  to  file  a  charge  based  on  a  criminal  libel  against 
General  MacArthur,  we  had  to  be  prepared  to  prove  our  case.   That 
meant  we  not  only  had  to  prove  that  they  had  made  these  charges,  but 
we  had  to  prove  that  they  were  false  in  fact.  How  were  we  going  to 
prove  that  General  MacArthur,  when  he  left  the  Philippines  and  went 
to  Australia,  was  not  deserting  his  troops  but  was  acting  under 
orders?  We  couldn't  do  it  without  getting  help  from  the  Pentagon. 

I  telephoned  Ed  Shattuck,  who  at  that  time  was  general  counsel 
for  the  Selective  Service  System  under  General  Hershey — Ed  was  a 
California  lawyer — and  explained  the  situation.   I  said,  "We're  not 
anxious  to  get  into  this  case,  but  the  federal  authorities  feel  they 
can't  act  because  the  Attorney  General  of  the  United  States  says 
these  people  have  not  broken  any  federal  law.  We  have  this  state 
criminal  libel  statute  which  has  been  violated  by  the  libel  against 
General  MacArthur,  but  we  can't  act  unless  we  can  prove  the  case. 
And  that  means  we  have  to  have  somebody  to  testify  that  General 
MacArthur  made  that  move  from  the  Philippines  to  Australia  under 
orders." 


245 


Olney:   So,  Ed  said  he'd  call  us  back  and  he  did  very  shortly.   He  said, 
"I  talked  to  General  Marshall  about  this.  General  Marshall  said 
that  if  you  go  ahead  with  that  case,  he  will  guarantee  that  there 
will  be  a  witness  present  to  testify  that  General  MacArthur  had 
orders  from  the  President  of  the  United  States  to  go  to  Australia, 
and  that  he  did  not  desert  his  troops  under  fire  but  went  under 
orders."  Then  he  said,  "General  Marshall  thinks  some  action  ought 
to  be  taken  about  these  people,  and  he's  willing  to  do  this."  I 
said,  "This  is  all  right,  but  a  lot  of  time  can  go  by  between  now 
and  the  time  that  we  would  actually  have  to  call  somebody  as  a 
witness.   Do  you  know  who  would  be  available?"  He  said  General 
Marshall  had  told  him  there  were  only  two  persons  who  could  testify 
to  those  orders  because  they  were  highly  secret  at  the  time  they 
were  issued.  Both  were  lieutenant  colonels,  but  he  said  one  or  the 
other  would  be  available. 

Well,  to  skip  ahead,  when  we  did  get  arou-nd  to  having  the  trial, 
there  was  only  one  of  these  officers  available  to  testify.  The 
other  had  been  sent  to  Europe.  His  name  was  Dwight  D.  Eisenhower. 

Well,  with  these  assurances  from  the  Pentagon,  we  concluded  we 
should  arrest  these  fellows,  which  we  did,  for  violating  the  Cali 
fornia  criminal  libel  statute.  We  put  them  under  bail.   This  got  a 
lot  of  publicity  in  the  Los  Angeles  newspapers.   They  were  out  on 
bail  in  maybe  five  or  six  days,  as  I  recall.   And  here  was  the 
state,  prosecuting  these  people  for  libeling  a  United  States  general 
in  his  profession.   This  apparently  got  under  the  hide  of  the  U.S. 
Attorney  General  because  without  saying  anything  to  us,  the  federal 
government  then  went  around  and  arrested  them  on  a  federal  charge 
of  sedition. 

Well,  when  they  made  their  arrest  for  sedition,  we  said  to  them, 
"Now,  there  isn't  going  to  be  any  pulling  and  hauling  over  these 
fellows.  We  don't  care  who  tries  them  as  long  as  they  get  tried 
and  aren't  running  around  loose  uttering  this  kind  of  stuff.   But 
since  we  arrested  them,  you  go  ahead  and  try  them  and  we'll  pick  up 
the  pieces  if  there  are  any  to  pick  up."   So  they  did.   They  went 
ahead  and  tried  them.  They  were  in  the  U.S.  District  Court  in  Los 
Angeles  and  were  convicted. 

In  the  meantime  we'd  gone  farther  with  our  inquiries — 

Stein:    Can  I  just  interrupt  a  second  here?   I  read  an  article  in  Life 

magazine  which  had  a  very  brief  chronology  of  the  trials.   It  said 
there  that  in  August  of  '42,  Noble  was  sentenced  to  five  years  in 
federal  prison  for  violating  the  Wartime  Sedition  Act.  Do  you  have 
any  idea  how  they  changed  their  minds  from  earlier  not  wanting  to 
prosecute  them  for  sedition? 


246 


Olney:  No,  I  do  not,  excepting  that  it  made  them  look  so  darn  funny,  a 
state  acting  upon  facts  that  were  primarily  of  federal  concern. 
That's  all  I  knew  about  it. 

We  had,  besides  these  criminal  libel  charges  against  Noble  and 
Jones,  another  layer  of  the  organization  that  we  could  indict  under 
a  different  law.   This  included  a  man  named  F.K.  Ferenz,  a  fellow 
named  James  McBride,  and  two  brothers,  Van  Meter  brothers,  who  were 
really  pretty  weird.  They  liked  to  play  at  being  storm  troopers 
and  used  to  wear  German  steel  helmets  and  armbands  with  swastikas. 
They  had  big  knives  and  bayonets  with  the  swastika  on  them,  and 
they  used  to  sound  off  in  their  meetings  about  the  time  when  they 
could  go  into  action  against  all  the  Jews  around  town.  There  were 
two  women  also.  They'd  done  work  for  the  organization,  they  were 
on  the  inside  of  it,  and  they  knew  all  the  plans  and  everything 
else.  One  was  Noble's  secretary.  We  couldn't  very  well  leave  them 
out,  but  we  didn't  take  them  very  seriously. 

We  found  that  we  had  a  statute  that  had  never  been  used,  but  it 
appeared  that  if  it  had  any  application  to  anybody,  it  applied  to 
this  group.   It  was  a  statute  passed  to  hit  the  communists  and  it 
was  called  the  Foreign  Agents  Registration  Act.   It  had  been  passed 
about  four  or  five  years  before.  It  provided  that  any  organization 
which  was  foreign-controlled  or  foreign-supported  engaging  in  propa 
ganda  had  to  register  with  the  California  secretary  of  state.  There 
were  severe  penalties  for  failing  to  register.  We  thought  we  could 
connect  this  group  up  quite  tightly  with  official  Nazi  organizations. 
We  developed  what  we  thought  was  quite  adequate  proof  on  that  sub 
ject.  We  could  show  that  they  consistently  had  followed  the  Nazi 
party  line  as  it  varied  from  one  time  to  another,  even  on  minor 
details.   Then  we  had  in  F.K.  Ferenz  a  man  who  was  deeply  involved 
in  the  German  National  Socialist  party.  We  had  some  letters  indicat 
ing  he  was  registered  and  carried  as  a  member  in  Germany  of  the  Nazi 
party  and  was  a  member  and  leader  of  The  Friends  of  Progress  and 
kept  them  supplied  with  Nazi  propaganda  materials. 

Stein:   You  mentioned  that  none  of  you  liked  the  statute  very  much.  Why 
was  that? 

Olney:   In  the  first  place,  it  was  pretty  vague.  In  the  second  place,  the 

whole  concept  of  the  statute  might  be  open  to  question  as  to  whether 
it  was  constitutional.   Here  is  a  statute  that  says  that  if  you're  a 
foreign  organization,  you've  got  to  come  in  and  register  as  such. 
In  doing  that  you're  providing  the  very  information  which  may  be 
used  to  incriminate  you.   The  statute  was  copied  from  a  federal 
statute  that  Senator  McCarran  and  the  old  Dies  Committee  dreamed  up. 
Jack  Tenney  and  these  Red-baiters  up  in  the  California  legislature 
shoved  this  thing  through.   There  it  was  on  the  books,  and  if  it 
was  a  valid  law  it  seemed  to  us  it  would  apply  to  this  group.  This 
was  wartime,  and  we  didn't  have  any  long-range  objectives  to  be 


247 


Olney : 


Stein: 
Olney : 


Stein: 

Olney: 
Stein: 
Olney : 


achieved  by  that  statute.  We  were  looking  for  anything  that  would 
make  it  possible  legally  to  lock  these  people  up,  shut  them  up. 
We  thought  that  was  a  desirable  end.  We  had  no  compunctions  about 
using  the  Foreign  Agents  Registration  Act,  even  though  if  we'd  been 
in  the  legislature  we  never  would  have  voted  for  such  a  bill. 


So,  we  arrested  them  and  tried  them, 
case  ever  tried  under  that  statute. 

Was  it  declared  unconstitutional? 


It  was  the  one  and  only 


No,  it  was  not.   It  was  a  lengthy  trial.  We  started  that  case  about 
the  middle  of  August  and  it  went  every  day  until  the  end  of  October. 
The  evidence  that  we  put  on  was  absolutely  fascinating.   Not  only 
did  we  put  into  the  record  what  had  happened  when  MacArthur  went 
from  Bataan  to  Australia,  but  we  had  a  background  on  Nazi  organiza 
tion  and  their  international  plans.  We  had  a  former  president  of 
the  Senate  of  the  Free  State  of  Danzig.  He  testified  at  length 
about  his  conversations  with  Adolph  Hitler,  that  Hitler  had  spoken 
about  the  program  they  were  going  to  follow  with  respect  to  the 
United  States. 

Was  this  the  high  Nazi  official  that  you  refer  to  in  your  opening 
statement  to  the  jury? 

Yes,  it  was. 

Do  you  remember  his  name? 

Yes.  Hermann  Rauschning.  Another  witness  we  had  was  Professor  Malbone 
Graham  from  UCLA,  whose  specialty  was  national  socialism.  He  had 
made  a  very  extensive  trip  in  Germany  and  Scandinavia  studying 
national  socialism.  He  had  been  present  in  Vienna  at  the  time  of 
the  Anschluss  and  saw  the  Nazi  troops  arrive.  He  was  able  to 
describe  what  took  place  at  the  time  of  the  parade  in  Vienna  when 
Austrian  children  were  rounded  up  by  the  Nazis  to  be  shown  in  the 
movies  throwing  flowers  to  the  soldiers.   He  had  witnessed  by 
accident  a  secret  Nazi  ceremony  in  KBnigsberg  Castle  when  the  Nazi 
gauleiters  from  Norway,  Denmark,  Sweden,  and  Finland  were  assembled 
to  make  the  mystical  touch  of  their  swastika  flags  with  the  blood- 
soaked  banner  of  the  Nazi  martyrs.   He  described  in  detail  the  Nazi 
program  for  uniting  all  persons  of  German  blood  and  descent  in  the 
Nazi  movement  no  matter  where  located  or  what  their  citizenship 
might  be. 


248 


Olney:   We  used  all  that  as  background  and  then  showed  the  counterparts  in 
California.  We  had  moving  pictures  of  German  Day  in  Hindenberg 
Park  in  Los  Angeles  in  1938.   It  was  a  fascinating  movie.   At  the 
park  entrance  were  huge  heads  of  General  Hindenberg  and  Adolph 
Hitler.   On  the  pathway  leading  to  the  open-air  theater  was  a  large 
plaque  of  Hitler  with  incense  burning  in  front  of  it.   At  each  side 
of  the  theater  platform  there  were  two  huge  banners  in  the  typical 
Nazi  style — a  great  big  banner  with  a  swastika  on  one  and  an  Amer 
ican  eagle  on  the  other.   Then  the  movie  showed  the  storm  troopers 
with  swastika  armbands,  goose- stepping  in  and  taking  their  places. 
Then  the  speakers  came  on.  This  was  '38  and,  of  course,  the  Spanish 
Civil  War  was  going  on.   They  had  a  couple  of  Nazi  officers  from  the 
Condor  Legion  in  uniform.   Although  this  film  did  not  have  a  sound 
track,  you  could  see  from  their  gestures  what  their  speeches  were 
about.  With  their  hands  they  were  demonstrating  the  maneuvers  of 
their  planes.   Sitting  up  there  alongside  the  Nazi  officers  were 
Mayor  Shaw  of  Los  Angeles,  District  Attorney  Buron  Fitts  of  Los 
Angeles  County,  and  Herman  Schwinn,  the  western  gauleiter  of  the 
German-American  Bund,  who  was  there  in  Bund  uniform.   F.K.  Ferenz, 
later  one  of  the  leaders  of  The  Friends  of  Progress  and  a  defendant 
in  the  case,  was  one  of  the  speakers  shown  on  the  platform  in  the 
movie  film. 

We  also  showed  another  movie  which  Ferenz  had  been  showing  around 
to  members  and  anywhere  he  could  get  somebody  to  look  at  it.   This 
one  had  a  sound  track.   This  was  the  official  Nazi  film  of  the 
Anschluss.   It  starts  in  with  the  Nazi  guards  at  the  Austrian  border 
pulling  up  the  border  posts  and  sweeping  the  guards  aside,  then  the 
tanks  going  across  the  border  and  down  the  roads  into  Austria,  and 
then  these  massive  fleets  of  aircraft  overhead.   Then  you  see  pic 
tures  of  this  joyous  welcome.   In  all  the  towns  they  were  going 
through,  everybody  was  out  there  waving  Nazi  flags.  When  they  come 
to  Vienna,  you  never  saw  such  a  joyous  populace,  masses  of  little 
children  throwing  flowers.   Dr.  Graham,  our  witness,  had  seen  this 
and  he  described  where  these  little  children  in  the  picture  came 
from.   The  Nazis  had  brought  them  in  from  all  over  the  countryside 
and  supplied  them  with  these  flowers.   They  were  told  to  throw  the 
flowers  on  the  soldiers  and  then  they  were  shipped  on  home.   There 
wasn't  anything  spontaneous  about  it.   It  was  staged  for  the  Nazi 
cameras . 

Stein:    I  was  wondering  if  they  paid  the  people,  or  threatened  them,  or 
what. 

Olney:   Oh,  no.   It  was  much  easier  than  that.   They  just  dragooned  them. 
This  was  the  movie  that  the  Nazis  showed  all  over  Scandinavia  and 
Poland  and  it  scared  the  hell  out  of  people.   It  was  intended  to 
impress  them  with  Nazi  military  might,  which  it  surely  did. 


249 


Olney:   These  two  films  we  had  seized  from  F.K.  Ferenz,  and  the  Nazi 

activities  they  showed — one  in  Los  Angeles  and  the  other  in  Vienna — 
were  remarkably  parallel.  We  showed  both  these  films  to  the  jury, 
and  some  of  the  defendants  were  emotionally  stirred  up  by  the 
pictures.   One  broke  down  and  sobbed  with  apparent  joy.   Others 
were  obviously  thrilled,  especially  with  the  pictures  of  Field 
Marshal  Goering  and  the  Fuehrer,  Adolph  Hitler. 

Well,  then  we  also  had  some  other  things  that  we  used  against 
Ferenz  that  were  most  remarkable.   It  was  a  set  of  letters.  He  had 
been  in  the  United  States  at  the  time  of  World  War  I  and  was  told 
to  report  for  the  draft  but  was  excused  as  an  Austrian  citizen. 
They  were  going  to  put  him  in  an  internment  camp,  but  never  got 
around  to  doing  it.   But  he  had  a  sister  who  lived  in  Vienna  and 
he  corresponded  with  her  quite  regularly  all  during  these  years. 
Like  so  many  Germans,  he  had  never  thrown  anything  away. 

Stein:    I'm  sure  he  had  it  stored  very  neatly  away,  all  labeled. 

Olney:   Sure  was.  Here  were  letters  from  his  sister.  He  didn't  keep  copies 
of  the  letters  he  had  written,  but  you  could  see  from  what  she  said 
what  he  had  written  in  many  instances.   They  were  really  fascinating. 
They're  down  now  in  the  Hoover  Institute  of  War,  Revolution,  and 
Peace  at  Stanford  University.   That's  where  they  belong. 

She  writes  to  him  about  the  Dolfuss  regime  and  one  of  her  letters 
said  that  they'd  been  hearing  in  Vienna  about  this  new  political 
party  in  Germany,  the  National  Socialist  party.   Then  the  letters 
go  on,  and  there  are  more  incidents  she  relates  of  riots  and  trouble, 
and  finally  Dolfuss'  assassination.   She  refers  to  the  Nazis  more 
often.   Finally  she  writes  him  with  exultation  that  she  had  gotten 
his  letter  and  rejoices  to  learn  that  he,  who  has  been  so  far  away 
from  Europe,  from  the  homeland,  for  so  long,  is  also  a  member  of 
the  National  Socialist  party.   She  writes  that  she  and  her  husband 
had  been  members  for  a  long  time,  and  so  was  her  son.   She  describes 
some  of  their  party  activities  in  very  guarded  language.   She  sent 
Ferenz  the  underground  papers  that  the  Nazis  were  publishing. 

She  and  her  husband  were  running  a  ferry  across  the  Danube  and 
having  a  very  rough  time  of  it.   But  she  was  there  at  the  time  of 
the  Anschluss  and  they  went  out  to  see  the  Nazis  arriving.   Her  old 
man  fell  off  a  ladder  and  broke  a  leg.   But  it  didn't  dampen  their 
enthusiasm  at  all.   She  was  just  keen  for  this  for  about  ten  days, 
not  longer  than  that. 

And  then  she  wrote  and  indicated  that  she  thought  that  the  Nazis 
were  going  much  too  far,  that  they  were  much  too  severe.   The  young 
men,  including  her  son,  had  been  conscripted  for  work  and  were 
building  fortifications.   She  did  not  like  these  preparations  for 
war.   She  described  how 'they  were  treating  her  Jewish  friends. 


250 


Olney:    Some  fine  old  lady  that  all  of  them  had  known  and  loved — they  had 

her  out  scrubbing  the  sidewalk  with  a  toothbrush.   There  were  many, 
many  indignities  that  she  recited.   Then  she  says  that  the  food  got 
worse,  not  better,  under  the  Nazis.   She  wrote  about  the  possibility 
of  Ferenz  coming  home  to  Vienna.   It  seems  he  owned  a  theater  in 
Los  Angeles  called  the  Continental  Theater .   It  was  a  small  cinema 
showing  mostly  foreign  films.   She  had  the  idea  that  Ferenz  could 
exchange  his  theater  with  some  Jewish  people  that  they  knew  who 
owned  a  very  large  theater  in  Vienna  and  were  trying  to  get  out  of 
the  country.   She  had  taken  this  up  with  the  local  gauleiter  and 
was  trying  to  maneuver  this  exchange  of  theater  properties.   It 
never  materialized. 

This  was  the  kind  of  thing  that  went  into  evidence  in  this  case. 
Now,  all  of  the  defendants  were  convicted  on  all  of  the  charges. 
An  appeal  was  taken  to  the  district  court  of  appeal.  It  must  have 
taken  a  year  and  a  half  or  two  years  probably  to  decide  that  case. 
They  reversed  the  convictions  of  all  of  them.  The  court  said  that 
the  evidence  did  show  that  The  Friends  of  Progress  were  following 
the  Nazi  party  line  and  were  endeavoring  to  support  the  Axis  Powers 
in  the  war,  but  that  it  failed  to  show  that  The  Friends  of  Progress 
were  foreign-controlled  or  dominated  or  supported,  and  that  that 
was  an  essential  element.   The  court  held  the  Foreign  Agents 
Registration  Act  did  not  apply  to  home-grown  American  Nazis.   They 
reversed  it  on  that  ground . 

Well,  unfortunately,  when  the  case  was  argued  there  was  nobody 
in  the  attorney  general's  office  who'd  had  anything  to  do  with  the 
case.   And  with  a  transcript  of  that  length  and  intricacy,  I  don't 
think  they  worked  it  out  well.   I've  always  felt  that  that  element 
was  satisfactorily  established.  We  had  a  chart  of  the  foreign 
connections  of  The  Friends  of  Progress  as  established  by  the 
evidence.  We  did  not  introduce  the  chart  into  evidence.   Perhaps 
we  should  have.   The  chart  should  have  been  included  in  the  briefs 
filed  with  the  district  court  of  appeal.  We  had  on  the  chart  at 
least  eight  Nazi  organizations.   Some  were  party  organizations  and 
some  were  governmental  organizations.   [shows  interviewer  the 
chart  ]   Of  course,  this  chart  is  nothing  but  spaces,  but  for  every 
one  of  these  spaces  we  had  live  testimony  and  documents  establish 
ing  the  connection  of  the  defendants  that  we  had  with  these  groups. 
So,  we  thought  we  had  them.   It  really  doesn't  matter,  because  by 
the  time  the  case  was  reversed,  the  menace  or  the  danger  that  these 
people  posed  had  long  since  passed.   The  war  was  over  and  the  Axis 
Powers  had  been  defeated.   So  that's  the  story  of  the  case  and  how 
we  got  into  the  thing. 


251 


Stein:   Was  the  civil  liberties  argument  ever  raised  anywhere  along  the 
line? 

Olney:   Well,  it  may  be  that  it  was  made;  if  it  was,  I  don't  know.   You  see, 
I  was  chief  counsel  in  the  trial  of  that  case.   There  were  four  law 
yers  for  the  prosecution,  three  from  the  attorney  general's  office: 
Lou  Drucker,  who  was  later  superior  court  judge  in  Los  Angeles,  and 
Sherrill  Halbert,  who  became  a  United  States  district  judge  in 
Sacramento,  and  I.   Then  there  was  Otis  Babcock,  district  attorney 
of  Sacramento  County.   The  case  was  over  in  October  of  '42,  and  I 
went  into  the  marine  corps  only  two  weeks  later  and  didn't  know 
what  happened  to  the  case  after  that.   There  were  no  complaints 
from  the  civil  liberties  people  about  that  case  that  I  know  of . 

Stein:   One  of  the  reasons  I  ask  is  that  Bob  Kenny,  in  a  manuscript  of  his 
that  we  have  at  the  office,  said  that  he  raised  objections  to  the 
bill  when  it  first  came  up  in  the  legislature.  He  was  then  a 
senator.   He  voted  against  it  as  being  unconstitutional.   By  the 
time  the  case  was  appealed,  he  was  attorney  general.   His  office 
was  forced  to  argue  the  case  assuming  the  law  was  constitutional. 
He  didn't  comment  on  it  any  more  than  that;  he  just  said  that  in 
his  view  it  was  fortunate  that  the  appellate  court  reversed,  but 
that  it  wasn't  reversed  on  constitutional  grounds. 

Olney:   Well,  I  would  agree  with  him.   In  the  first  place,  what  he  says  is 

absolutely  accurate,  of  course.   It  was  not  a  good  precedent  at  all, 
and  it  could  well  be  that  the  judges  on  the  district  court  of 
appeal  felt  that  it  was  a  case  that  had  to  be  reversed  and  it  was 
better  to  do  it  on  evidentiary  grounds  than  it  was  on  constitutional 
grounds.   If  that's  the  way  they  felt,  I  wouldn't  quarrel  with  that 
either. 

Stein:   Is  this  law  still  on  the  books,  presumably? 

Olney:   As  far  as  I  know.   But  I  haven't  looked  at  the  California  Penal  Code 
for  years.   It's  still  there,  as  far  as  I  know. 

Stein:   I  don't  know  if  it's  ever  been  used,  but  I  just  wondered  if  it  was 
still  sitting  there. 

Olney:   Well,  I  can't  imagine  that  it's  been  used  since,  because  there  is 
this  federal  statute,  Foreign  Agents  Registration  Law,  which  is 
being  used  from  time  to  time.   So,  if  there  is  any  occasion  to 
have  such  a  prosecution,  I'd  expect  it  under  the  federal  law.   I 
can  recall,  for  example,  that  when  I  was  in  the  U.S.  Department  of 
Justice,  we  convicted  a  fellow  named  Frank  for  being  an  unregistered 
foreign  agent  of  Trujillo,  the  San  Dominican  dictator. 


252 


Olney:   The  whole  idea  of  that  statute  gives  me  the  creeps  and  there  haven't 
been  many  prosecutions  under  it,  and  sooner  or  later  it  is  going  to 
have  to  undergo  real  thorough  scrutiny.   I  have  the  same  feeling  Bob 
Kenny  does,  that  in  all  probability  it  is  not  constitutional. 

Stein:   Who  were  the  defense  attorneys  in  the  case?  Do  you  remember? 

Olney:   They  were  appointed  by  the  court.   They  were  Sacramento  lawyers. 
One  of  them  was  a  former  state  senator.   There  were  at  least  four 
of  them.   They  were  there  in  the  local  bar — 

Stein:   I'm  surprised  that  they  didn't  find  friendly  attorneys  that  were 

willing  to  take  the  case.   I  wondered  if  perhaps  they  had  people  in 
the  organization  who  were  attorneys. 

Olney:   Not  that  I  know  of.   There  were  few  people  friendly  to  The  Friends 
of  Progress  and  certainly  no  attorneys. 

Stein:   The  one  last  question  I  have  is  that  you  gave  some  indication  of 

the  size  of  the  meetings  and  I  wonder  if  you  can  remember  now  about 
how  large  a  number  of  people  you  were  dealing  with  in  Friends  of 
Progress  and  the  related  organizations. 

Olney:   That  was  a  very  loose  sort  of  thing  indeed.   They  would  rent  this 
auditorium  and  try  to  get  as  many  people  as  possible  to  come  in 
from  the  street  to  listen  to  harangues  and  programs  and  so  forth. 
With  the  mock  trial,  they  were  filling  the  place.   After  their 
arrest  and  then  their  release  and  their  diatribes  against  the 
United  States  and  the  Allies,  and  praise  of  Hitler  and  Japan,  the 
meetings  were  nowhere  near  as  large.   They  were  big  enough — I  don't 
know — five  or  six  hundred,  something  like  that,  as  I  recall.   I 
didn't  attend  any. 

Stein:   Did  you  have  agents  from  the  attorney  general's  office  attending  the 
meetings? 

Olney:   We  had  no  agents  in  any  of  the  meetings  and  we  had  no  paid  informants. 
The  people  we  used  as  witnesses  to  establish  what  had  been  going  on, 
what  had  been  said  and  by  whom — most  of  them  we  got  from  the  Ameri 
can  Legion  post.   The  American  Legion  got  concerned  with  this  group 
and  they  got  a  number  of  people  together.   I  remember  a  man  and  his 
wife  in  particular;  she  was  a  very  able  secretary  indeed.  They  went 
to  these  meetings  regularly  and  then  promptly  went  home  and  wrote 
up  an  account  of  what  had  transpired  at  the  meeting.   They  didn't 
try  to  take  notes  during  the  meeting;  they  did  it  afterwards.   The 
notes  were  very  thorough  and  evidently  they  were  very  exact  because 
at  the  trial  there  was  never  any  dispute  about  who  had  said  what. 
It  was  conceded  that  these  things  had  indeed  been  said.   The  defense 
was  sort  of  "so  what?" 


253 


XI   THE  WIRE  SERVICES  CASES 


State  Border  Disputes 


Stein:    I  have  a  couple  of  questions,  to  shift  gears  a  bit,  about  the 
Annenberg  case,  which  I  don't  think  we've  talked  about  yet.   I 
think  most  of  the  story  is  on  the  tapes  with  Warren.   A  couple  of 
questions  I  have  concern  parts  that  you  played  in  the  story.   In 
Leo  Katcher's  book  on  Warren*,  he  mentions  that  in  investigating 
this  case  you  found  some  maps  that  indicated  that  all  of  Lake  Tahoe 
is  in  California.   Do  you  remember  that? 

Olney:   He's  wrong  about  that  if  he  said  that.   The  maps  that  I  came  up  with 
are  maps  that  showed  that  practically  all  of  State  Line  Point  was 
in  California.   That's  where  these  gambling  places  are  at  the 
northern  part  of  the  lake.   Not  all  of  the  lake;  heavens,  no. 

The  basis  of  it  is  very  simple.   The  boundary  line  that  is 
described  in  the  California  constitution  and  the  Nevada  constitu 
tion,  and  the  territorial  act  that  created  Nevada  and  Utah  terri 
tories  before  statehood,  and  in  every  act  of  the  United  States 
referring  to  such  things,  is  an  astronomical  line.   It's  the  120th 
meridian,  starting  at  the  intersection  with  the  42nd  degree  of 
latitude  at  the  northern  end  of  the  state,  running  due  south  down 
that  meridian  to  the  39th  parallel  of  latitude,  which  was  about  in 
the  middle  of  the  lake;  that's  where  the  intersection  would  be. 
And  then  it  goes  at  an  angle  in  a  southeasterly  direction  in  a 
straight  line  to  the  point  where  the  35th  parallel  of  latitude 
intersects  the  Colorado  River. 


Leo  Katcher,  Earl  Warren:  A  Political  Biography  (New  York,  1967). 


254 


Olney:   Well,  the  question  is:  where  is  the  120th  meridian  on  the  ground 
as  it  runs  north  and  south  through  Lake  Tahoe?   There  has  been  a 
whole  series  of  surveys,  most  of  which  were  way  off.   I  won't  go 
through  the  whole  series  of  them,  but  there  was  one  in  1871  and 
1872,  the  von  Schmidt  Survey.   That  one  was  monument ed ,  and  the  old 
boys  who  located  the  place  where  the  line  was  supposed  to  hit  the 
shore  of  Lake  Tahoe,  the  north  shore,  set  up  this  monument,  a  big 
iron  monument  that's  still  there  right  on  the  tip  of  State  Line 
Point.  But  that  survey  was  not  official  and  was  not  accepted  by 
either  state. 

Later,  about  1898,  the  USGS  [United  States  Geodetic  Survey]  made 
a  survey  at  the  request  of  both  state  legislatures.   They  located 
the  meridian,  the  location  of  the  true  meridian.   Both  legislatures 
passed  statutes  accepting  that  as  the  true  boundary.   If  you  get  a 
USGS  map  today,  you  will  find  two  lines  on  it.   One  of  them  is  the 
true  meridian  located  by  the  1898  survey  coming  down,  and  then 
they've  got  this  old  one,  the  von  Schmidt  Survey,  that  they  indicate 
on  there  too,  simply  because  it's  been  monumented  on  the  ground  and 
people  have  been  paying  attention  to  it. 

But  you  can  make  a  very,  very  strong  case  indeed  that  the  land 
that  lies  west  of  the  true  meridian  as  shown  on  the  USGS  map  is  in 
the  state  of  California.  This  would  include — well,  I  had  a  list  of 
them  once — at  least  a  dozen  major  casinos  up  there.   There  was  only 
one  at  the  time  we  got  interested  in  the  boundary  location.   This 
was  Cal-Neva.  They  had  a  batch  of  telephones  in  there  that  were 
servicing  bookies  all  over  California.   They  wouldn't  take  them  out 
and  we  couldn't  get  the  telephone  company  to  do  much  about  it,  so 
I  decided  we  might  as  well  give  them  the  treatment.  We  worked  up 
our  case,  which  proved  that  they  were  actually  located  on  the 
California  side  of  the  true  state  line.  Not  only  did  they  have  the 
telephones  for  the  bookies  and  the  gambling  games,  but  they  were 
also  running  bars  and  selling  liquor  in  what  was  really  California 
territory  without  paying  any  state  liquor  taxes  or  having  any 
licenses.  There  were  statutory  penalties  for  that.   So,  we  thought, 
"Well,  maybe  the  thing  to  do  is  to  organize  a  raid  and  just  grab 
everything  in  the  darn  place,  hit  them  with  the  works."  So,  I  took 
this  notion  to  the  attorney  general — or  was  he  governor  then? 

Stein:   No,  I  think  Warren  was  attorney  general  then. 

Olney:   I  guess  he  was  attorney  general,  if  you  say  he  was.   He  laughed  and 
he  said,  "Well,  maybe  you  think  you  got  a  bright  idea,  but  you 
couldn't  bring  it  up  at  a  worse  moment."  He  said,  "The  State  of 
California  has  got  troubles,  interstate  troubles,  particularly  over 
water  from  the  Colorado  River.   All  the  states  in  the  Colorado  River 
basin  are  against  us  excepting  the  State  of  Nevada.   Nevada  is  the 
only  friend  we've  got.   This  is  no  time  for  us  to  start  biting  a 
piece  off  the  State  of  Nevada."  He  said,  "Come  around  twenty  years 
from  now." 


255 


Olney : 


Stein: 
Olney : 

Stein: 


Olney : 


Stein: 


Olney : 


Stein: 
Olney : 


I  still  don't  know  how  matters  have  been  worked  out.  When  you  go  up 
that  way,  you  can  see  that  Nevada  paves  up  to  the  old  von  Schmidt 
line,  which  is  really  in  California.   Everything  is  operated  on  this 
old  unofficial  boundary  line.   There  was  a  time  when  divorces  were 
hard  to  get  in  this  state  while  they  were  easy  in  Nevada.   But  you 
had  to  reside  in  Nevada  to  get  a  Nevada  divorce.   One  of  the 
advertised  attractions  of  Cal-Neva  was  that  if  you  lived  in  the 
buildings  on  the  Nevada  side  of  the  line,  you  were  residing  in 
Nevada,  and  many  divorces  were  awarded  based  on  such  residence. 
But  these  buildings,  and  indeed  all  of  Cal-Neva,  were  west  of  the 
true  boundary  as  located  by  the  official  survey  of  1898,  which  had 
been  recognized  by  both  states. 


Oscar  Jahnsen  was  helping  you  on  that,  wasn't  he? 

Yes,  Oscar  was  helping  us  try  to  get  rid  of  the  telephones, 
not  make  up  the  maps  or  try  to  conduct  any  surveys . 


He  did 


He  had  some  recollection  of  the  maps  in  his  interview.   I've  just 
been  going  over  it,  and  he  mentions  that  map  story.   So,  I  wondered 
if  he  helped  you  on  the  map.   He  also  asked  me  to  check  the  story 
out  with  you  to  make  sure  he'd  gotten  it  right. 

Yes.   Well,  he  didn't  dig  up  the  maps;  I  did  that.   I  went  up  there 
and  took  a  bunch  of  photographs  of  these  monuments  in  their  then 
location.   Joe  Schoales  went  up  there  with  me;  no,  it  was  John 
Hansen.   It  was  later;  it  was  later  that  I  did  that.  That  was 
during  the  Crime  Commission  period.   Anyway,  I've  kept  up  my  interest 
in  this.   I've  got  a  file  at  home  that's  got  all  the  maps  in  it,  all 
the  surveyor's  notes,  and  everything  else.   It's  an  interesting 
point. 

You  seem  to  have  specialized  in  points  of  boundaries,  with  offshore 
boundaries  and  the  California-Nevada  line. 

You'd  think  that  a  state  boundary  would  be  as  certain  and  as  well 
determined  as  any  line  you  could  find.   But  it  isn't  so.   It's 
strange,  the  uncertainties  that  still  persist.   I  told  you  about 
the  one  in  Yuma,  I'm  sure. 

I  don't  remember  that  story. 

The  piece  of  the  city  of  Yuma  that's  in  California?  Well,  this  was 
in  connection  with  the  Annenberg  case.   There  was  a  big  telephone 
installation  over  in  Yuma  that  was  supplying  bookmakers  in  Cali 
fornia  after  their  direct  lines  had  been  all  discontinued.   One  of 
the  main  relay  points  for  that  service  was  in  Bakersfield.   And  the 
fellow  who  was  tied  in  with  the  Continental  News  Service  from 
Chicago,  who  was  in  charge  of  the  whole  southwestern  part  of  the 
country,  was  making  his  headquarters  in  Phoenix. 


256 


Olney:   Well,  he'd  come  down  to  Yuma  from  time  to  time  to  oversee  his  tele 
phone  operation.   Then  he  went  to  Bakersfield  one  time  and  got 
together  with  the  bookmakers  there  and  made  their  plans  for  working 
this  thing  out.  Well,  this  was  a  conspiracy.  We  indicted  them, 
all  of  them,  including  this  fellow  from  the  wire  service,  for 
conspiracy.  He  had  gone  back  to  Arizona  and  we  tried  to  extradite 
him  and  were  unsuccessful  because  the  governor  just  wouldn't  sign 
the  papers.  We  had  a  big  time  trying  to  get  him  out  of  there  with 
out  success. 

Then  I  remembered  a  matter  that  I  had  read  about  in  the  California 
Historical  Society  Quarterly.   The  author  was  Francis  Seely  Foote,  a 
professor  at  the  University  of  California  at  Berkeley.   He  had 
written  a  small  article — "Notes"  is  what  it  was — for  the  California 
Historical  Society  Quarterly,  pointing  out  this  peculiar  quirk  in 
the  boundary  in  the  southern  part  of  the  state.   The  line  in  question 
had  been  an  international  boundary  between  the  U.S.  and  Mexico  prior 
to  the  Gadsden  Purchase.   It  was  a  part  of  the  line  that  had  been 
surveyed  by  the  commissioners  from  the  United  States  and  Mexico 
following  the  Treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo .   The  survey  was  run  and 
actually  monumented  on  the  ground.   The  monuments  are  still  there. 
Since  the  Gadsden  Purchase,  the  line  marks  the  boundary  between 
California  and  Arizona  instead  of  that  between  the  U.S.  and  Mexico. 
There's  a  piece  of  the  city  of  Yuma  which  is  on  the  California  side 
of  that  line.   The  reason  for  that  is  that  the  boundary  line  between 
the  United  States  and  Mexico  (which  is  now  the  California- Arizona 
line)  is  described  as  running  southwest  down  the  center  of  the 
Colorado  River  to  its  intersection  with  the  Gila  River,  and  from  the 
point  where  the  center  of  Colorado  intersects  with  the  center  of  the 
Gila  River  the  boundary  runs  in  a  straight  line  westerly  to  a  point 
which  is  one  marine  league  south  of  the  southernmost  end  of  San  Diego 
Bay.   Undoubtably  the  assumption  was  that  the  Colorado  River  was 
running  from  the  northeast  to  the  southwest.   The  fact  is  that  it 
does  that  in  general.   But  when  it  comes  down  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Gila  River,  it  makes  a  bend  and  it  goes  north  for  quite  a  distance, 
a  mile  and  a  half,  something  like  that,  maybe  more.   Then  it  loops 
down  and  goes  on  down  towards  the  southwest.   The  boundary  line  cuts 
across  that  loop.  Yuma  is  right  there,  at  the  mouth  of  those  two 
rivers.  The  part  of  the  town  that  is  in  the  loop  is  cut  off  from 
Arizona  by  the  line  and  lies  in  California. 

Well,  I  had  read  this  thing,  and  knowing  by  experience  how  very 
uncertain  these  lines  are,  and  that  one  state  can't  get  title 
against  another  state  by  adverse  possession,  I  made  some  inquiries. 
I  sent  one  of  the  boys  from  the  attorney  general's  office  over  to 
Yuma  to  ask  questions.   He  went  over  there  and  the  first  thing  that 
he  asked  about  was  whether  the  city  hall  knew  anything  about  this. 
"Why,  sure,  everybody  knows  about  it,"  and  they  took  him  out  and 
showed  him  the  line.   The  international  markers  are  right  there, 
still,  to  this  day.   As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Yuma  city  hall  is 
on  the  north  or  California  side  of  that  line. 


257 


Olney:   Well,  we  got  to  wondering  if  we  could  make  any  use  of  these  circum 
stances.  We  looked  at  the  telephone  room  too,  where  this  man  used 
to  come,  but  it  unfortunately  was  on  the  Arizona  side  of  the  line. 
But  anyway,  I  sent  our  fellows  down  there  with  a  warrant  because 
they  knew  they  could  work  with  the  Yuma  police.   One  day  when  this 
character  was  over  at  the  telephone  room,  why,  the  Yuma  police 
called  him  up  and  asked  him  if  he  wouldn't  come  down  to  the  city 
hall.  He  said,  "Sure."  So  he  came  down  to  the  city  hall  and  he 
was  greeted  on  the  steps  by  our  boys  with  a  warrant.  They  promptly 
took  him  into  custody  and  threw  him  into  an  automobile,  and  you 
could  hear  him  holler  for  blocks  around.   He  claimed  he  was  being 
kidnaped.   They  took  him  across  the  bridge  and  brought  him  into 
Bakersfield.  He  got  a  lawyer  and  they  made  a  complaint  to  the  FBI 
that  he'd  been  kidnaped  across  the  state  line.   We  showed  Foote's 
article  about  the  boundary  to  the  court  and  we  went  ahead  and  tried 
and  convicted  him.   They  never  raised  the  point  in  court;  it  was 
not  adjudicated  in  the  court. 

Another  time  when  we  used  that  same  boundary  point  was  on  the 
telephone  company.   It  concerned  the  same  telephone  room.  Mountain 
States  Telephone  Company  provides  service  in  Arizona.   They  were 
providing  the  phone  service  for  this  room.   I  asked  the  counsel  for 
the  Pacific  Telephone  Company  here  if  they  wouldn't  ask  Mountain 
States  to  close  down  that  telephone  room,  because  it  was  serving  no 
purpose  except  to  violate  the  laws  of  the  State  of  California. 
They  would  have  been  fully  justified  legally  in  discontinuing  the 
service.  Well,  when  Sam  Wright,  a  lawyer  representing  Pacific 
Telephone  with  whom  I  had  been  talking,  reported  back,  he  said  he 
had  talked  with  Mountain  States  about  it  and  he  said,  "They  said 
they  aren't  going  to  do  a  darn  thing  about  it,  that  they  don't 
operate  in  the  state  of  California,  and  it's  none  of  our  business 
what  they  do  in  Arizona." 

I  said,  "What  do  you  mean  they  don't  operate  in  California?" 
He  said,  "They  don't,  you  know.   Southern  California  Telephone 
Company  owns  the  wires  and  operates  the  service  in  that  area  right 
up  to  the  line,  and  then  Mountain  States  takes  over."   I  said, 
"Where's  the  line?"  He  said,  "Out  there.   It's  the  middle  of  the 
Colorado  River.   Southern  California  Telephone  Company  owns  the 
wires  right  up  the  middle  of  the  river  and  Mountain  States  owns  the 
lines  on  the  other  side."  I  said,  "Mountain  States  is  providing 
service  at  the  Yuma  city  hall,  aren't  they,  that  area  around  there?" 
"Oh,  sure."  "Well,"  I  said,  "the  fact  is  they  are  thereby  providing 
service  in  the  state  of  California.   They  are  doing  that,  you  know, 
without  a  certificate  of  public  convenience  and  necessity  from  our 
Public  Utilities  Commission.   There's  a  $2,500  civil  penalty  pro 
vided  in  the  statute  for  every  day  of  operation.   How  long  have 
they  been  there?" 


258 


Olney:   Well,  Sam  thought  I  was  kidding,  and  I  said,  "Sam,  I'm  serious. 

There's  a  part  of  Yuma  that's  in  the  state  of  California."  "Oh," 
he  said,  "that  can't  be  the  case.   I  drew  those  contracts  myself." 
I  said,  "Well,  maybe  you  did,  but  did  you  really  research  the 
boundary  in  that  area?"  "No,  I  didn't."  "Well,"  I  said,  "part  of 
the  city  of  Yuma  is  on  the  north  side  of  that  former  international 
boundary,  and  what  is  on  the  north  side  of  that  line  is  in  the 
state  of  California."  I  brought  this  article  of  Foote's  out  and 
he  read  it.  I  thought  he  was  going  to  fall  off  his  chair.  He  said, 
"Give  me  twenty-four  hours,  will  you?"  I  said,  "Sure." 

In  less  than  that,  he  called  me  up  and  he  said,  "I  just  want  to 
tell  you  that  that  telephone  room  isn't  operating  any  more."  I 
don't  know  what  they  did  about  it,  but  it  really  bothered  them 
enough  to  cause  them  to  close  down  that  telephone  room. 


Prosecuting  the  Wire  Services 


Stein:   You  told  me  at  some  point  the  story  about  how  you  and  Warren  went 
to  Chicago  to  testify  at  the  federal  trial  of  the  Annenbergs,  and 
how  the  U.S.  Attorney,  whose  name  was  Bill  Campbell,  was  very 
impressed  with  that.   I  wondered  if  you  could  just  tell  that  story 
briefly  because  I  don't  think  we  have  that  on  tape. 

Olney:   Well,  this  happened  about  November  of  '39,  right  after  the  gambling 
ship  litigation  came  to  an  end.   I  remember  it  very  vividly  because 
I  had  been  worked  to  a  frazzle  and  my  wife  and  I  took  a  little  trip 
up  to  the  Calaveras  Grove  of  Big  Trees.   It  was  cold  as  can  be, 
beautiful  though. 

When  we  came  back,  Earl  said  to  me,  "We've  got  to  do  something 
about  the  wire  service  and  the  bookmakers  in  our  state.   I  think 
the  moment  has  come  because  the  federal  government  is  making  very 
extensive  moves  against  Annenberg  and  his  Nationwide  News  Service 
in  Chicago.   If  these  people  are  really  in  earnest,  now  is  the 
time  for  us  to  strike  a  blow  in  our  own  state."  He  said  that  he 
had  received  a  request  from  the  United  States  Attorney  in  Chicago — 

Stein:   Was  this  Bill  Campbell? 

Olney:   Yes,  this  was  Bill  Campbell,  the  Honorable  William  J.  Campbell, 
United  States  Attorney  for  the  Northern  District  of  Illinois. 
The  request  was  for  a  statement  from  Earl  Warren,  as  attorney 
general  of  California,  about  the  wire  service  and  the  bookmaking 
racket  as  it  existed  in  California.   The  statement  was  to  be  pre 
sented  to  the  court  in  connection  with  the  sentencing  of  Moses 
Annenberg.   They  had  a  number  of  indictments  against  Annenberg. 


259 


Olney:   They  had  a  lottery  indictment,  an  antitrust  indictment,  and  an 

income  tax  indictment.   He  plead  guilty  to  the  income  tax  indictment 
and  the  government  was  very  anxious  to  get  a  jail  sentence.   To  do 
that  they  wanted  to  get  before  the  judge  the  manner  in  which  this 
money  involved  in  the  tax  evasion  had  been  made.   It  was  a  true 
racket,  with  all  the  violence  and  bloodshed  and  everything  else  that 
goes  along  with  it. 

So,  Campbell  had  sent  requests  to  all  the  attorneys  general  and 
district  attorneys,  I  guess.   The  only  two  that  I'm  sure  about, 
though,  are  Earl  Warren  and  Tom  Dewey  of  New  York.   But  anyway, 
Earl  said  that  he  had  decided  that  he  was  going  to  go  in  person, 
that  he  wasn't  going  to  write  any  statement,  because  he  wanted  to 
be  sure  this  thing  was  really  on  the  up  and  up.   He  took  me  with 
him. 

We  left  from  the  Oakland  airport  here  in  a  DC3  that  was  a 
sleeper  plane.   If  you've  never  been  in  a  sleeper  plane,  it  was 
fixed  up  with  berths,  upper  and  lower  berths,  just  like  a  railroad 
car.  When  the  berth  was  up,  you'd  sit  opposite  each  other  like  you 
did  on  a  railroad  car.   Then  a  berth  would  come  down  from  above, 
making  an  upper  and  lower  berth.  When  you  got  into  bed,  they'd  put 
a  great  big  strap  around  you.   You  had  to  sleep  under  this  strap. 
Those  DC3's,  you  know — when  they  land  the  tail  goes  way  down,  so 
that  you  were  practically  half  standing  up  in  this  bed.   It  was  a 
long,  long  flight.   They  stopped  at  Reno,  Salt  Lake,  North  Platt 
and,  I  guess,  other  places.  We  had  our  dinner  on  the  plane  and  it 
was  seven  o'clock  the  next  morning  before  we  got  into  Chicago.   That 
was  my  first  night  flight. 

We  went  into  the  federal  court  without  announcing  ourselves  to 
see  what  was  going  on  and  to  watch  the  proceedings  when  the 
Annenberg  case  was  called.  We  saw  enough  of  it  to  convince  Earl 
that  that  this  was  a  good-faith  prosecution  and  was  a  genuine  effort 
to  clean  up  this  racket.   So,  he  made  himself  known  to  Bill  Campbell 
and  Campbell  put  him  on  the  witness  stand  and  had  him  testify  about 
the  racket  as  it  existed  and  he'd  encountered  it  in  California. 
Campbell  had  received  a  statement  of  only  two  or  three  lines  from 
Tom  Dewey  and  no  other  response  from  anyone  else.   Earl  Warren's 
trouble  to  appear  personally  made  a  tremendous  impression  on  Bill 
Campbell. 

A  huge  amount  of  work  had  been  done  by  federal  agents  on  the 
wire  service  at  that  time.   They  had  a  man  named  Samuel  Klaus  who 
was  in  charge  of  it,  all  around  the  country.   He  was  a  Treasury 
agent — a  Treasury  lawyer,  I  should  say — and  an  investigator.   He 
had  worked  out  all  the  relationships  in  the  organization  of  Nation 
wide  News  Service  and  the  identity  of  these  people.   He  gave  us 


260 


Olney:  great  encouragement  about  going  ahead  on  our  own  against  the  racket 
in  California  and  offered  every  assistance  if  we  would  move  against 
the  wire  service  here,  which  we  did. 

We  didn't  expect  litigation  because  our  relations  with  the  tele 
phone  company  were  very,  very  different  than  they  were  between 
federal  and  state  law  enforcement  agencies  and  telephone  companies 
elsewhere.   Our  telephone  company  was  never  resistant  about  getting 
rid  of  the  wire  service.  They  would  say,  "We  don't  want  to  be 
giving  service  to  a  bunch  of  stinking  racketeers,  but  we're  obliged 
to  serve  the  public  in  general.   If  you  can  give  us  any  excuse,  any 
valid  legal  protection  so  that  we  can  deny  service,  you  don't  have 
to  sue  us;  we'll  go  ahead  and  do  it,"  which  they  did.   They  took  out 
all  lines  without  compulsion  if  we  could  provide  them  with  adequate 
evidence  of  their  unlawful  use.   The  litigation  they  got  into  was 
litigation  by  the  wire  service  and  the  bookies  to  try  to  get  the 
service  back,  reinstalled,  and  that  was  a  long,  long  story.  We 
eventually  filed  that  big  injunction  suit,  and  all  the  descriptions 
in  there  of  what  the  wire  service  was  nationally  we  got  from  Sam 
Klaus  and  from  the  work  that  the  Treasury  agents  had  done.   Our 
contribution  was  the  details  of  what  the  wire  service  was  in  Cali 
fornia.* 

That  case  was  reversed  and  thrown  out  by  the  California  Supreme 
Court,  as  the  Chief  [Earl  Warren]  remembered.**  And,  you  know,  I 
thought  he  was  mistaken  about  that.   But  he's  right  and  I  was  wrong. 
The  thing  that  threw  me  off  was  because  I  remember  we  didn't  have 
any  more  wire  service  or  bookie  operations  for  some  years.   But  the 
reason  for  it  was  that  supreme  court  decision  was  in  November  of 
1941,  but  the  Japanese  attack  and  the  outbreak  of  war  were  just  a 
few  weeks  later.  With  hostilities,  horse  racing  was  closed  down 
for  the  duration  of  the  war  all  over  the  United  States,  or  nearly 
everywhere.   There  was  such  a  demand  for  communication  services, 
there  simply  wasn't  anything  available  for  anything  as  stupid  as  a 
bunch  of  bookmakers.   That's  the  reason  bookmaking  dried  up.   It 
wasn't  because  we  won  our  case,  which,  as  the  Chief  remembered,  we 
didn't. 


*A  copy  of  the  attorney  general's  petition  for  injunction  and  the 
court's  preliminary  injunction  are  on  deposit  in  The  Bancroft 
Library . 

**Reference  to  conferences  with  Earl  Warren.   Transcripts  are 
currently  in  production  and  will  be  deposited  in  The  Bancroft 
Library. 


261 


Olney: 


Stein: 


Olney : 


Bookmaking  revived  during  the  1950s  and  the  time  of  the  crime  com 
mission.   It  was  once  more  a  pretty  full  operation.  When  Earl 
Warren  was  governor,  we  had  more  trouble  with  it,  but  did  succeed 
in  rooting  out,  once  again,  all  the  larger  trunk  lines.   It's 
destroyed;  it  doesn't  work  any  more  and  never  will  again.   The 
reason  for  it  is  that  to  make  that  wire  service  work  you  have  to 
have  a  huge  nationwide  organization  of  specialized  people  to  do 
their  jobs.  You  have  to  have  the  people  at  the  track  capable  of 
smuggling  the  racing  information  out  in  such  forms  to  make  it 
usable.  What  they  used  to  use  were  old-time  telegraph  operators, 
but  they're  all  dead.   They  don't  have  anybody  like  that.   Then  you 
have  to  have  an  organization  where  the  information  from  race  tracks 
all  over  the  country  is  pooled.   And  then  you  have  to  have  a  dis 
seminating  network  to  distribute  it  back  to  the  bookies.   You  can't 
organize  that  way  any  more. 

Now,  just  refresh  my  memory  again  about  the  supreme  court  case. 
Why  did — 

Well,  what  happened  was  that  we  filed  this  big  injunction  suit,  got 
an  injunction  from  Judge  Wilson  in  the  superior  court  in  Los 
Angeles,  prohibiting  Russell  Brophy,  who  was  running  the  wire 
service  there,  and  Kreling  and  Cohn,  who  were  running  it  in  San 
Francisco,  from  doing  certain  things,  disseminating  information 
and  whatnot.   They  went  ahead,  in  violation  of  the  injunction,  and 
continued  to  provide  service  in  the  manner  in  which  it  was  prohib 
ited.  We  could  prove  sixty  or  more  days  of  operation. 

We  charged  them  with  contempt,  criminal  contempt,  for  each  day 
of  operation  that  we  could  prove.   They  were  found  guilty  and  the 
judge  imposed  fines  and  sentences  which  were  cumulative,  because 
they  were  separate  violations,  one  on  top  of  the  other.   The 
results  were  that  the  sentences  were  very  substantial,  and  so  were 
the  fines. 

They  took  an  appeal  to  the  California  Supreme  Court  and  the 
basic  question  was,  was  the  original  injunction  a  valid  one?  The 
supreme  court  held  that  it  was  not .   They  conceded  that  a  gambling 
house  was  a  public  nuisance  and  was  both  a  criminal  offense  and  a 
civil  tort.   But  they  said  that  it  did  not  follow  from  that  that 
you  could  enjoin  people  who  were  aiding  and  abetting  the  maintenance 
of  the  nuisance.   That  was  their  theory  of  our  case.   So,  they  threw 
it  out  on  that  ground.   It  would  have  done  us  an  awful  amount  of 
harm  if  the  war  hadn't  come  along  at  that  very  time,  but  it  did. 
And  the  Chief  is  still  upset  about  it;  he  still  thinks  that  it  was 
a  very  poor  and  very  unwise  decision. 


Stein: 


It  sounds  very  strange  to  me. 
way. 


I  wonder  why  they  decided  it  that 


262 


Olney:   Well,  you'd  have  to  ask  them;  they  put  it  all  in  their  opinion. 

No,  they  didn't  put  it  in  their  opinion;  that's  another  thing  that 
irks  the  Chief.   They  put  their  major  reasoning  in  an  opinion  about 
a  gambling  house  in  Monterey,  which  was  just  a  little  Chinese 
gambling  place,  in  a  case  which  was  decided  the  same  day. 

Stein:   Oh,  I  remember  that.   Then  they  used  that — 

Olney:   But  the  wire  service  case,  which  involved  the  biggest  racket  that 
we  had  in  California,  the  court  disposed  of  almost  summarily  and 
without  much  of  an  opinion.   I've  never  known  how  they  got  that 
way;  I  just  don't  know.   I'm  not  among  those  who  attribute  evil 
motives  to  judges  that  put  out  decisions  I  don't  agree  with.   I 
don't  think  there's  anything  crooked  about  this  decision  at  all. 
And  I  have  a  hunch  they  may  have  had  second  thoughts  about  it. 

Stein:   Do  you  have  the  injunction  that  you  filed?*  It  would  be  useful  to 
include  that  in  the  Warren  papers  in  The  Bancroft  Library. 

Olney:   Well,  perhaps  it  would,  and  of  course  its  yours,  because  you  got  it. 
This  includes  the  preliminary  injunction  on  which  these  contempt 
proceedings  were  later  based.  But  it  also  includes  the  original 
complaint.   It  lists  all  the  defendants  and,  incidentally,  the  first 
defendant  was  Moses  L.  Annenberg,  who  was  the  president  of  the 
Nationwide  News  Service,  the  head  of  this  racket.   The  second  one 
is  his  son,  Walter  H.  Annenberg,  who  was  the  acting  head  at  that 
time,  while  Moses  was  pretty  old.   In  fact,  he  died  before  he  served 
out  his  sentence,  and  Walter  H.  Annenberg  is  now  the  Ambassador  of 
the  United  States  to  Great  Britain.   Nixon  named  him  as  an  ambassa 
dor. 

Stein:   Well,  that's  a  success  story  for  you. 

Olney:   The  rest  of  these  are  just  the  darndest  bunch  of  hoodlums  you  ever 
saw.  Well,  here's  James  M.  Ragen,  Sr.   A  little  later  when  he  was 
riding  from  his  office  to  his  home  in  Chicago,  a  car  came  alongside 
his  limousine  and  up  went  a  curtain  and  they  blasted  him  with  a 
sawed-off  shotgun.   Ragen  did  not  die,  so  they  took  him  to  the 
hospital  in  a  critical  condition.  When  he  was  reported  as  getting 
well,  someone  got  into  his  room  and  killed  him.  Many  of  these 
other  defendants  are  gangsters  that  were  killed  at  a  later  period. 


On  deposit  in  The  Bancroft  Library. 


263 


Stein:   Did  any  of  them  serve  time  as  a  result  of  this  case? 

Olney:   Well,  no.   This  wasn't  a  criminal  case;  this  was  a  civil  case. 

Now,  on  the  allegations,  as  I  have  explained,  the  descriptions  of 
the  general  organization  nationally,  the  Nationwide  News  Service 
and  wire  service,  were  based  on  evidence  supplied  to  us  by  the 
Treasury  agents ,  particularly  Samuel  Klaus .   Now,  when  you  get  to 
the  allegations  about  California,  those  were  all  produced  by  our 
own  investigations.  We  have  a  list  of  who  the  heads  of  the  service 
were,  and  then  we  have  a  list,  just  as  an  exhibit,  of  the  addresses 
by  number  and  street  and  town  and  county  of  all  the  bookmakers  in 
the  state  of  California  that  there  were  at  that  time.  We  got  that 
by  subpoenaing  the  records  of  the  telephone  company  that  had  the 
direct  wires.   These  places  all  had  direct  wires  for  the  Nationwide 
News  Service;  nobody  else  could  use  the  darn  stuff.   So  that's 
where  that  came  from,  but  it  was  supplemented,  of  course,  by  many 
on-the-spot  investigations  by  our  people  to  make  sure  these  really 
were  bookie  joints. 

Stein:   Well,  I  think  that's  all  the  questions  I  have. 


264 


XII   THE  CALIFORNIA  CRIME  STUDY  COMMISSION  ON  ORGANIZED  CRIME 

, 
[Interview  13:  December  6,  1976]* 

Setting  up  the  Crime  Commission 

Administrative  Machinery 

Stein:   Why  don't  we  start  with  the  establishing  of  the  crime  commission, 
and  how  and  why  Earl  Warren  chose  to  set  it  up. 

Olney:    I  don't  have  as  much  information  on  that  as  you  might  think.   At 
the  time,  in  the  fall  of  1947,  I  was  practicing  law  privately  in 
San  Francisco.   I  had  a  partnership,  Olney  and  Elder.  We  were  in 
the  Alaska  Commercial  Building.   I  read  about  the  governor's  inten 
tion  of  establishing  a  crime  commission  when  it  was  in  the  papers, 
but  he  didn't  consult  with  me  and  I  had  no  occasion  to  see  him  or 
discuss  it  with  him.   There  was  some  legislation  that  was  passed 
which  authorized  the  creation  of  these  special  study  commissions  on 


*Editor's  note:   This  section,  recorded  considerably  after  all  the 
other  interviews  had  been  completed,  was  only  lightly  reviewed  and 
edited  by  Mr.  Olney  before  his  final  illness,  and  should  therefore 
be  used  with  caution.   The  reader  is  referred  to  the  reports  of  the 
crime  commission,  on  deposit  in  The  Bancroft  Library,  which  offer 
a  substantive  account  of  the  work  of  the  commission.   Mr.  Olney 's 
recollections  in  this  section  add  anecdotal  and  human  interest 
material  that  should  be  used  in  conjunction  with  the  commission 
reports. 


265 


Olney:   crime  in  the  Department  of  Corrections.   They  were  part  of  the 

Department  of  Corrections  and  under  their  general  auspices.   There 
were  some  five  commissions,  the  one  on  organized  crime  being  only 
one. 

Stein:    If  I  could  interrupt  just  a  second:  why  were  they  put  under  the 
Department  of  Corrections? 

Olney:    I  think  for  budgetary  reasons  and  administrative  reasons.   That  was 
the  only  logical  place  to  put  them.   But  I  don't  know  about  that. 
That  legislation  was  drawn  without  my  having  anything  to  do  with  it 
at  all. 

After  the  legislation  was  passed,  the  governor  talked  to  me  about 
becoming  counsel  for  the  commission  on  organized  crime.   And  he 
talked  to  me  about  some  of  the  members,  who  he  might  select,  who  he 
could  find  that  would  be  suitable  to  serve  on  the  commission.   I 
recall  that,  but  that's  really  about  the  only  conversation  I  had 
with  him  prior  to  the  beginning  of  the  commission's  work,  which  was 
on  November  1,  1947. 

On  that  day  the  governor  had  a  large  meeting  in  Sacramento  where 
the  membership  of  all  these  special  crime  study  commissions  met 
along  with  as  many  of  their  staff  members  as  there  were,  as  well  as 
people  from  the  Department  of  Corrections  and  elsewhere.   Of  course, 
in  the  Department  of  Corrections  they  were  more  interested  in  the 
commissions  on  adult  procedures  and  juvenile  justice  and  things  of 
that  kind  than  they  were  in  the  commission  on  organized  crime.   The 
meeting  was  presided  over  by  Richard  McGee,  who  was  the  director  of 
the  Department  of  Corrections,  although  the  governor  was  there  and 
got  it  off  to  a  good  start. 

My  recollection  is  that  that  was  a  two-day  meeting.   It  was  not 
a  public  meeting,  but  it  was  a  very  large  meeting,  and  besides  these 
people  who  were  to  be  active  I  believe  that  sheriffs,  district 
attorneys,  chiefs  of  police,  the  attorney  general,  and  the  Adult 
Authority  were  all  present.   So  it  was  a  discussion  of  "Where  are 
we?"  in  dealing  with  the  various  facets  of  the  problem  of  crime; 
how  should  we  assess  the  present  situation  and  what  plans  should  we 
make  about  the  future  in  these  various  areas.   That's  what  we  were 
discussing. 

I  can  remember  some  of  the  district  attorneys  who  were  there  and 
the  sheriffs  and  chiefs  of  police  that  I  had  known  formerly  before 
the  war  when  I  was  in  the  attorney  general's  office.   But  I  had 
never  met  Fred  Howser  or  any  of  the  people  in  his  office,  and 
neither  had  I  heard  anything  particularly  disquieting  about  him  or 
them.   The  governor  had  told  me  that  he  had  been  hearing  very  up 
setting  things  about  the  attorney  general's  office  and  what  was 


265a 


CRIME  COMMISSION  PERSONNEL 

First  Crime  Commission:   11/1/47  -  6/30/50 
Commission  Members: 

Admiral  Standley,  Chairman  -  U.S.N.,  retired.   Former  U.S.  ambassador 

to  Russia 

Gerald  Hagar  -  attorney;  past  president,  California  State  Bar 
William  Jeffers  -  past  president,  Union  Pacific  Railroad;  U.S. 

Rubber  Coordinator,  W.W.  II 
Gen.  Kenyon  A.  Joyce  -  U.S.A.,  retired;  Commanding  General,  9th 

Service  Command,  W.W.  II. 
Harvey  S.  Mudd  -  president,  Pacific  Alkali  Company;  mining  engineer 


Staff: 


Counsel :   Warren  Olney  III 

Assistant  Counsel:  Arthur  Sherry  (after  Jan.,  1950) 

Investigators:  John  H.  Hanson,  Chief   11/5/47  -  11/30/48 

H.G.  Robinson,  Chief    12/1/48  -  6/30/50 

Virgil  Wolfe 

Thomas  Judge 

Edward  Cochran     7/1/48  -  1/31/49 

H.R.  Van  Brunt     (after  Jan.,  1950) 


Second  Crime  Commission:   10/8/51  -  6/3/52 
Commission  Members : 

Gen.  LeRoy  P.  Hunt,  Chairman;  U.S.  Marine  Corps,  retired 

Harley  E.  Knox,  former  mayor,  City  of  San  Diego 

E.  Wilson  Lyon,  president,  Pomona  College 

Edwin  J.  Owens,  Dean  of  the  College  of  Law,  University  of  Santa 

Clara 
T.M.  Storke,  president  and  general  manager,  Santa  Barbara  News 

Press  Publishing  Company 


Staff: 


Counsel:  Warren  Olney  III 
Assistant  Counsel:   Alan  A.  Lindsay 
Chief  Investigator:   H.R.  Van  Brunt 


266 


Olney:   happening  to  law  enforcement  in  the  state.   He  had  no  way  of 

evaluating  it.   He  didn't  know  how  much  of  it  was  true  or  how  much 
was  untrue.  But  he  was  fully  aware  that  there  were  plenty  of  people 
who  were  anxious  to  make  trouble  for  him  and  for  Howser.   He  said 
that  he  was  anything  but  close  to  Howser  and  that  Howser  had  sort 
of  ridden  into  office  on  his  coattails  at  the  election.   But  he  said 
he  thought  that  we  would  probably  find  out  from  the  people  that  we 
knew  in  local  law  enforcement  what  was  going  on  and  could  check  into 
it  and  make  reports  as  to  what  the  situation  was . 

He  had  already  appointed  John  Hanson  as  the  chief  investigator 
for  the  crime  commission.   I  think  he  appointed  John  before  I  was 
appointed.   John  had  been  for  years  the  chief  special  agent  in 
Southern  California  for  the  FBI.   That  was  all  during  the  war  years, 
and  during  that  period  they  weren't  moving  FBI  agents  around  as 
they  habitually  did  both  before  and  after.   So  a  man  such  as  Hanson, 
who  had  been  there  for  some  years,  had  a  tremendous  background  and 
personal  knowledge  of  criminal  activities  in  that  area. 

Stein:   I  was  interested  in  what  you  were  saying  about  Bowser's  background 
because  one  of  the  things  I  came  across  in  my  reading  was  that  his 
sister  had  been  arrested  as  a  prostitute,  but  I  guess  that  wasn't 
until  a  trifle  later  in  1949. 

Olney:    I  don't  recall  that.   Now  that  you  speak  of  it,  I  do  remember  there 
was  some  sex  story,  'but  I  don't  remember  whether  anything  like  that 
was  ever  authenticated  or  not.   Certainly  I  didn't  know  it  at  the 
outset  and  it  never  figured  to  any  extent  with  us  because  it  wasn't 
our  business. 

Stein:    In  setting  up  the  crime  commission  I  gather  that,  first  of  all,  the 
commission  was  not  given  the  power  to  subpoena.   Is  that  true? 

Olney:   That's  right. 

Stein:   I  was  wondering  why  that  power  had  been  denied  the  commission. 

Olney:   Well,  I  can't  give  you  much  information  on  that  either  because  that, 
of  course,  was  in  connection  with  the  legislation  which  authorized 
these  commissions,  and  I  wasn't  consulted  about  that.  My  recollec 
tion  is  that  the  original  drafts  of  the  legislation  had  conferred 
the  subpoena  power.   I  don't  know  whether  it  was  on  all  five  com 
missions  or  just  on  the  one  on  organized  crime.   I  think  that  they 
had  a  provision  like  that  in  there. 

But  the  subpoena  power  is  a  fearsome  thing.   It's  a  power  that 
is  easy  to  abuse,  and  legislators  are  properly  concerned  and  should 
be  concerned  about  to  whom  they're  going  to  grant  that  power.   To 


267 


Olney:    take  an  ad  hoc  commission  of  appointees  of  the  governor  when  they 
didn't  even  know  who  the  people  were  going  to  be  and  confer  that 
power  on  them — I  think  it's  understandable  that  some  of  them  would 
have  considerable  reluctance,  and  would  not  be  willing  to  do  it 
without  a  clear  demonstration  that  it  was  necessary. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  wasn't  necessary.   The  second  commission 
did  get  subpoena  power,  but  it  wasn't  through  any  request  of  ours 
or  any  feeling — I  take  that  back;  we  may  have  requested  it,  at  that. 
The  one  use  that  the  subpoena  power  did  have  for  us  was  that  in 
obtaining  documents  and  records,  especially  bank  records  or  other 
business  records,  a  company  like  that  is  reluctant  to  just  reveal 
records  on  a  request;  but  they  may  be  very  willing  to  give  the 
information,  copies  of  the  documents,  under  a  subpoena  because  it 
gives  them  a  valid  reason  for  doing  that  with  the  people  who  may 
be  involved  in  the  records.  We  have  found  that  it  would  have  been 
helpful  and  useful  to  have  subpoena  power  on  the  first  commission 
for  that  kind  of  thing,  although  we  had  virtually  no  problems  getting 
records. 

When  the  second  commission  got  subpoena  power,  the  newspapers 
thought  that  we  were  going  to  hold  public  hearings  and  subpoena 
witnesses  and  bring  them  in  and  grill  them,  as  their  term  is,  cross- 
examine  them  and  that  kind  of  thing.  We  didn't  do  that  with  any 
body,  for  several  reasons.   The  first  one  was  that  it  wouldn't  have 
served  any  useful  purpose  for  us  to  do  it.  We  wouldn't  have  gotten 
anything  we  didn't  have  anyhow.   Another  thing  is  that  proceedings 
like  that  take  a  lot  of  time  and  they  cost  a  lot  of  money.  You 
have  to  have  a  room  and  a  reporter  and  all  that  kind  of  thing,  and 
we  were  trying  to  stay  within  our  budget,  so  we  didn't  want  it  for 
that  reason. 

Another  controlling  reason  why  we  never  subpoenaed  any  unwilling 
witness,  even  when  we  had  the  subpoena  power,  was  because  I  enter 
tained  very  serious  doubts  as  to  the  constitutionality  of  the  thing. 
I  doubted  that  a  commission  of  that  kind  could  be  given  subpoena 
power,  and  I  was  certain  that  if  we  ever  did  try  to  use  it  against 
an  unwilling  witness  and  he  refused,  there  would  be  long  drawn- 
out  litigation,  and  the  matter  couldn't  possibly  be  decided  within 
the  lifetime  of  the  commission.   So,  it  just  made  no  sense  to  get 
involved  in  that  kind  of  a  hassle. 

Stein:    I  gather  that  the  commission  had  its  share  of  opponents  in  the 
legislature.   Is  that  a  fair  assessment? 

Olney:   Well,  they  did,  yes.   But  they  were  the  same  group  of  people  who 
would  oppose  any  decent  legislation  against  gamblers  or  anything 
else.   There  wasn't  anything  extraordinary  about  them.   They  were 
in  a  minority. 


268 


Artie  Samish  and  the  Tom  Keene  Murder 


Olney:    [referring  to  interview  outline] 
the  role  of  Artie  Samish. 


I  see  here  you're  wondering  about 


Stein:   Yes. 

Olney:   On  that,  I  just  don't  know. 

Stein:   He  credits  himself,  in  his  autobiography  that  he  wrote  with  the 

help  of  someone  else,  with  getting  legislation  through.   He  tells 
the  story  fairly  early  in  the  book.  He  says,  "I  saw  to  it  that  the 
proposal  got  through  the  legislature."   And  then  he  talks  about 
what  an  irony  it  is  because,  according  to  him,  if  he  had  known  that 
you  were  going  to  be  the  power  that  you  were  on  the  crime  commission 
he  never  would  have  let  it  get  through  because  of  what  you  did  after 
wards,  which  he  interpreted  as  this  personal  vendetta  of  yours,  that 
you  were  out  to  get  him  and  finally  got  him  all  those  many  years 
later. 

Olney:   With  respect  to  the  passage  of  the  legislation,  I  don't  know  what 

part,  if  any,  he  played  in  it.   I  just  have  no  information  about  it. 
But  it  is  true  that  we  did  eventually  question  Samish.   And  when  I 
said  that  we  made  no  use  of  that  subpoena  power,  we  made  some  use  of 
it  in  that  particular  instance.   That  was  when  the  second  crime 
commission  had  virtually  completed  its  work,  and  we  were  ready  to 
prepare  a  report  and  not  have  any  more  commission  meetings.   In 
reviewing  the  situation  to  see  what  loose  ends  there  might  be,  we 
had  this  bomb  explosion  in  San  Mateo  County.   What  was  the  name  of 
the  man  that  got  killed  down  there?   That  dog-race  business? 

Stein:   Tom  Keene. 

Olney:   Yes,  Tom  Keene.  We  had  an  extensive  file  on  the  investigation  of 

Tom  Keene 's  murder,  and  you'll  recall  that  we  had  very  solid  infor 
mation — and  it's  in  our  report — that  there  was  this  large  bookmaking 
ring  at  the  Olmo  stables  in  San  Mateo  County  which  was  a  layoff 
center  for  the  whole  western  part  of  the  country. 

Stein:   What's  that? 


*Arthur  H.  Samish  and  Bob  Thomas,  The  Secret  Boss  of  California: 
The  Life  and  High  Times  of  Art  Samish  (New  York,  1971),  p.  14. 


269 


Olney:   Well,  it's  a  place  where  the  money  that  bookmakers  are  afraid  to 

carry  can  be  laid  off.   An  individual  bookmaker  has  to  keep  his  book 
in  reasonable  adjustment.   The  thing  that  he  always  has  to  be  afraid 
of  is  that  he's  going  to  have  a  lot  of  money  on  some  horse,  a  long 
shot  possibly,  that  may  come  in  and  there  will  be  very  large  amounts 
that  he's  got  to  pay  out,  maybe  more  than  he  can  handle. 

That  thing  happens  frequently  in  the  bookmaking  business.   To 
prevent  that,  when  he  thinks  he  gets  loaded  up  with  too  much  money 
on  one  horse,  he'll  want  to  lay  some  of  it  off  with  some  other  book 
maker.   It's  just  the  way  the  insurance  people  operate  with  re 
insurance  in  one  another's  companies.   And  to  do  that  they  had  these 
layoff  centers.   There  were  about  five  or  six  of  them  in  the  United 
States  where  certain  bookmakers  in  certain  areas  could  telephone  in 
and  lay  off  these  monies,  and  there  would  be  somebody  sitting  around 
the  table  who  would  be  willing  to  pick  it  up. 

Now,  that  takes  a  lot  of  money.   It  takes  big  money  to  operate 
that  way.   And  that's  what  they  were  doing  at  Olmo  stables.   And 
Samish  was  in  that  up  to  his  ears.   He  had  his  men — "Porky"  Flynn, 
and  I  forget  the  name  of  the  other  one.   [Mr.  Olney  later  recalled 
that  the  second  man's  name  was  Jasper.]   They  were  in  and  out  of 
there.  When  we  got  reports  about  this  we  checked  up  on  it  by  having 
people  go  and  watch  the  place,  and  we  saw  them  going  in  and  out. 

We  also  had  our  own  man  who  was  sitting  in  there  at  the  table, 
taking  part  in  this  thing.   He's  mentioned  in  our  report  by  name. 
When  we  came  to  write  this  up  we  had  to  put  his  name  in  there  or  he 
would  have  stuck  out  like  a  sore  thumb  if  we  hadn't  put  it  in  there. 
So,  he's  in  there.   But  he  was  giving  us  reports  of  what  was  going 
on. 

According  to  him,  Tom  Keene's  murder  was  discussed  at  length  by 
them  around  that  table,  not  in  any  speculative  way,  but  remarks  were 
made  that  he  only  got  what  was  coming  to  him  and  that  he  was  a 
dirty  welsher  and  things  of  this  kind.   From  conversations  he  got 
and  reported  to  us,  we  actually  thought  we  knew  who  the  man  was  who 
put  the  dynamite  in  the  car,  because  he  had  a  long  record  of  dyna 
miting  cars  in  just  that  fashion.   He'd  done  it  before.   He  was  a 
strong-arm  man  that  they  used  to  use  to  carry  the  money. 

Besides  this  business  on  telephones  with  the  layoff  centers, 
every  so  often  there 'd  have  to  be  a  reckoning  where  there  was  an 
actual  exchange  of  cash.   This  was  done  by  putting  money  in  a 
satchel  and  sending  it  from  San  Francisco  to  Covington,  Kentucky — 
that  was  one  of  the  main  ones — or  perhaps  to  Hot  Springs,  Arkansas, 
or  wherever  the  other  center  might  be.   A  man  actually  carried  it 
there.   This  dynamiter  used  to  have  that  assignment. 


270 


Olney:   We  knew  that  it  was  going  on  because  our  man  on  the  inside  told  us 
what  was  going  to  happen,  and  we  saw  this  fellow  come  with  the 
satchel;  he  went  down  to  the  bank  and  got  the  money  out  of  the  bank; 
he  was  picked  up  by  an  escort  of  the  San  Francisco  police  and  es 
corted  to  the  airport.   The  police  provided  him  a  guard  down  to  the 
airport.   There  were  many  other  things  that  made  us  have  great 
confidence  in  this  informant  we  had. 

If  you  took  the  conversations  that  he  repeated  to  us  literally, 
if  they  really  occurred  the  way  he  said  they  did,  they  indicated 
very  strongly  that  those  people  not  only  knew  who  killed  Keene 
but  that  they  were  the  ones  who  were  responsible  for  it  because 
Keene  had  welshed  on  something  like  an  eight-thousand-dollar  bet 
and  refused  to  pay.   Eight  thousand  dollars  was  more  money  then 
than  it  is  now. 

That  was  very  hot  information,  indeed,  and  it  involved  Samish's 
two  men  and  involved  Samish  himself .   Samish  himself  was  there  at 
the  table  sometimes.  We  never  felt  we  had  enough  information  to 
present  it  to  a  grand  jury  or  anything  of  that  kind.  This  was  hear 
say,  at  best. 

But  when  the  commission  was  about  to  end,   I  became  very  much 
concerned  about  what  we  ought  to  do  with  that  kind  of  a  thing.   I 
thought,  "Suppose  we  don't  do  anything;  we  just  fold  and  go  out  of 
existence.   Then  maybe  in  a  year  or  so  this  Keene  murder  breaks  wide 
open.   Then  it  comes  out  that  the  crime  commission  had  all  this 
information  pointing  in  this  direction.   The  commission  would  be 
subject  to  the  most  terrific  kind  of  public  criticism  and  it  would 
be  claimed  that  they  had  swept  the  thing  under  the  rug  in  order  not 
to  bother  Mr.  Samish  with  it." 

That  didn't  seem  like  a  fair  thing  to  do  to  the  commission.   I 
felt  responsible  for  giving  them  some  kind  of  guidance  on  things 
like  that.   So,  I  persuaded  them  that  before  we  ended  we  ought  to 
at  least  ask  Artie  Samish  if  he  knew  anything  about  it,  and  they 
agreed  that  we  should  do  it.  We  could  have  done  it  publicly  or 
issued  a  subpoena;  it  would  have  been  in  every  newspaper  in  the 
state.   So,  in  fairness  to  Samish,  we  sent  Harold  Robinson,  our 
chief  investigator  at  the  time,  over  to  see  him.   No,  it  was  [H.R.] 
Van  Brunt.   Robbie  [Robinson]  had  already  gone  with  the  Kefauver 
Committee. 

We  told  Samish  that  the  commission  would  like  to  ask  him  some 
questions  if  he  was  willing  to  answer  them,  that  we  knew  that 
publicity  would  be  very  harmful  to  him  and  we  would  do  everything 
possible  to  avoid  any  publicity.  We  arranged  to  have  the  meeting 
in  Boalt  Hall  [University  of  California,  Berkeley  law  school]  on  a 
Sunday  morning,  and  that's  where  we  did  hold  it. 


271 


Olney:   Before  we'd  gone  that  far,  I  thought  we  ought  to  do  everything 
possible  to  check  our  informant  as  to  whether  he  was  telling  us 
the  truth.   And  although  I  never  had  too  much  confidence  in  the 
polygraph,  it  was  in  use  at  that  time  and  there  were  many  people 
who  thought  that  it  was  highly  successful.   I  guess  in  some 
instances  it  proved  itself  to  be  successful. 

Probably  the  best  polygraph  operator  in  the  country  at  the  time 
was  Doug  Kelly,  who  was  on  the  faculty  at  the  University  of  Cali 
fornia.   He  was  in  the  School  of  Criminlolgy.   He  was  very  exper 
ienced.  He  was  the  psychologist  who  interviewed  Hermann  Goering 
in  connection  with  the  Nuremberg  trials,  so  he  had  great  standing 
and  a  reputation. 

I  got  a  hold  of  Kelly  and  told  him  that  we  had  an  informant  who 
had  a  long  account  of  many  events  and  that  we  were  very  concerned 
to  find  out  whether  there  was  any  intentional  deception  about  it, 
and  wondered  if  he  could  be  of  any  help.  He  said,  "I  can't  be  of 
any  help  to  you  with  a  polygraph  alone  because  there  are  some 
people  who  just  aren't  fit  subjects  for  a  polygraph  examination. 
You  can  get  people  in  a  mental  state  who  may  be  suffering  from 
hallucinations  or  something  of  that  kind  and  they'll  go  ahead  and 
relate  the  thing,  and  it  won't  register  on  the  polygraph  because 
they're  doing  it  in  perfect  good  faith  although  it  has  no  reality. 
The  machine  isn't  a  lie  detector.   It's  a  truth  detector,  if  any 
thing."  He  said,  "The  only  way  I  could  do  that  would  be  to  first 
give  him  a  complete  psychiatric  examination." 

So,  we  got  a  hold  of  our  man  and  said,  "What  about  it?  Will  you 
go  on  the  couch?"  And  he  said,  "Sure."  He  went  to  see  Dr.  Kelly, 
or  vice  versa — I  don't  know  which  way  we  arranged  it — and  Kelly  gave 
him  a  very  thorough  examination.   Then  ten  days  later  we  had  him  give 
him  a  second  examination,  and  when  he  got  through  Kelly  said, 
"There's  nothing  the  matter  with  this  man.   He's  as  normal  as  apple 
pie.   He's  perfectly  all  right.   He's  a  very  fit  subject."  Then 
Kelly  put  him  on  the  polygraph,  and  once  again  he  examined  him,  I 
think,  on  three  occasions — two  anyway — on  the  polygraph.   He  got  a 
completely  flat  record,  which  means  an  indication  of  a  complete 
absence  of  any  intentional  deception. 

Stein:   You  were  saying  that  that  didn't  necessarily  mean  that  it  was 
accurate. 

Olney:   Yes,  only  that  there  was  no  deliberate  deception  involved.  Well, 
it  was  because  of  that  that  we  finally  felt  we  were  justified  in 
asking  Samish  to  come  over  and  talk  to  the  commission.   The  com 
mission  and  I  discussed  at  some  length  about  how  this  examination 
was  going  to  be  conducted,  and  we  agreed  that  there  was  no  use  in 


272 


Olney:   asking  Mr.  Samish  if  he  had  anything  to  do  with  murdering  Tom  Keene. 
He  wasn't  going  to  say  yes  even  if  he  had.   The  probability  was  that 
we  wouldn't  get  any  useful  information  out  of  him.   But  perhaps  if 
we  asked  him  questions  about  the  Olmo  stables  and  the  bookmaking 
operation  and  things  of  this  kind,  we'd  get  some  reaction  and  some 
indication  from  him  that  might  throw  a  little  light  on  it.   So  we 
asked  him  to  come  and  he  did.   I  don't  remember  whether  we  had  a 
subpoena  or  not.   If  we  did,  it  was  because  he  asked  us  to.  We  may 
have.  We  may  have  told  him  that  if  it  was  any  comfort  to  him,  we'd 
give  him  one. 

Well,  we  had  our  meeting  and  the  commission  left  it  up  to  me  to 
question  him.   They  didn't  ask  him  questions.   And,  of  course,  I 
had  to  fence  all  over  the  place  to  try  to  get  information  out  of 
him  without  giving  any  clues  as  to  what  it  was  that  was  in  the  back 
of  our  minds.   From  his  account  that  you  showed  me  in  his  book,  I 
can  see  that  worked  all  right.   He  never  did  get  any  notion  of  what 
we  were  trying  to  get  out  of  him.   There's  part  of  what  he  has  in 
there,  most  of  it,  that's  quite  correct. 

I  did  question  him  at  long  length  about  this  bookmaker  friend  of 
his,  and  he  said  that  man  was  suffering  from  cancer,  that  he  thought 
we  were  trying  to  make  a  case  against  him  even  though  he  was  present 
ly  dying  of  cancer.  Well,  he  was  dying  of  cancer;  that  jLs.  correct. 
And  I  did  badger  Samish  with  all  kinds  of  questions  about  him.   But 
that  isn't  what  the  object  was,  to  try  to  make  a  case  against  him, 
but  to  see  if  anything  in  the  way  of  corroboration  for  the  story 
that  our  man  told  would  come  out  from  Samish. 

Nothing  did.   He  answered  every  question,  showed  no  distress 
about  anything  that  we  asked  him,  no  surprise.  He  denied  knowing 
anything  about  the  Olmo  stables;  he  said  he'd  never  been  there.  We 
knew  he  had.   He  denied  that  "Porky"  Flynn  and  the  other  man,  whose 
name  I  can't  remember  [Jasper],  had  anything  to  do  with  it,  although 
it  was  his  money,  his  bank  roll,  that  they  were  handling.   But  we'd 
expected  answers  of  that  kind. 

So  that  was  the  only  interview  that  we  had  with  him  and  under  a 
subpoena.  We  had  no  expectation  of  trapping  him  into  saying  some 
thing  that  would  make  it  possible  to  present  it  to  a  grand  jury. 
But  we  did  feel  that  we  would  have  been  negligent,  really,  if  we 
hadn't  even  asked  him  anything  after  all  the  information  we  had  in 
that  file.  So  that's  our  explanation  of  the  incident. 

Stein:   Another  thing  that  Artie  Samish  said  is  that  he  started  his  political 
career  in  your  father's  law  office  as  an  errand  boy. 


273 


Olney:    I  think  that's  right.   I've  heard  that  from  John  Parker,  who  also 
was  an  errand  boy  in  the  office,  and  the  two  were  errand  boys  at 
the  same  time.   I  don't  know  how  long  they  worked  there;  it  wasn't 
too  long  until  Samish  left.   He  used  to  rib  these  boys  about  why  in 
the  world  they  stayed  in  a  stuffy  old  place  like  that  and  didn't 
get  out  in  the  world  and  make  some  money.   John  Parker  later  became 
one  of  the  senior  partners  in  the  firm.  He's  now  dead.  But  Artie 
Samish,  at  one  time,  worked  in  the  state  legislature  when  he  was  a 
young  man.   And  there  one  of  his  fellow  workers  in  the  legislature 
was  Earl  Warren. 

Stein:  I  was  just  going  to  ask  if  they  held  the  same  sort  of  position. 

Olney:  It  was  1919,  I  guess,  right  after  the  war. 

Stein:  He  got  around,  then. 

Olney:  Yes. 


The  Attorney  General's  Office  and  Organized  Crime 


Stein:   I  wonder  if  you  want  to  say  anything  about  what  the  role  of  the 

commission  was  seen  as.   Its  name  suggests  that  it  was  set  up  as  a 
study  group. 

Olney:   It  was,  and  that's  exactly  what  we  thought  we  were  going  to  do. 

There  were  indications  that  the  rackets  were  starting  to  get  out  of 
hand.   These  indications  came  from  people  like  Sheriff  Jack  Gleason 
of  Alameda  County;  Charlie  Dullea,  who  was  the  chief  of  police  in 
San  Francisco;  Mayor  [Fletcher]  Bowron  in  Los  Angeles;  Frank  Coakley, 
district  attorney  of  Alameda  County;  and  others  in  the  District 
Attorneys  Association  and  other  district  attorneys  that  Earl  Warren 
and  I  had  known  for  years.  There  were  increasing  indications  of 
expanding  gambling  operations. 

You  can  go  through  a  town  and  pretty  well  tell  just  by  looking 
at  what's  on  the  street.  When  you  see  all  these  tip  sheets  out 
there  by  the  cigar  stores  and  things  of  that  kind,  you  know  per 
fectly  well  there's  a  book  right  near.   That's  the  only  reason  tip 
sheets  would  be  there.   And  the  slot  machines  were  not  only  reappear 
ing;  they  were  spreading  all  over  the  place. 

Then  there  were  these  rumors  that  these  officers  were  coming  up 
with  that  somebody  was  organizing  these  characters,  and  that  there 
was  a  system  of  payoffs  involved.  When  that  happens,  one  can  be 
very  sure  that  somewhere  along  the  line  there's  corruption.   You 
don't  know  where,  but  it  has  to  be  someplace  because  otherwise 
things  would  be  stopped. 


274 


Olney:   We  thought  that  it  was  probably  weakness  in  the  system  in  one 

locality  and  not  in  another.   Our  experience  in  the  thirties  had 
been  that  law  enforcement  varied  enormously  from  county  to  county, 
depending  on  the  personalities  of  the  sheriff  and  district  attorney, 
primarily,  and  that  this  was  probably  just  the  same  sort  of  measles. 

But  quite  early  we  had  this  incident  in  Alameda  County  of  Tony 
Heller,  who  was  a  "commission  man."  He  was  a  sort  of  a  layoff  man 
and  would  handle  stakes  and  hold  stakes  in  bets  on  all  kinds  of 
events.   He  operated  in  Oakland,  and  then  there  were  a  couple  in 
San  Francisco  that  were  bigger.   I  don't  remember  their  names. 
Heller  had  been  conducting  this  operation  which  was  semi-legal, 
or  maybe  I  should  say  only  semi-illegal.   Nobody  knew  for  sure 
exactly  what  it  was.   He  wasn't  making  book  in  the  ordinary  sense, 
and  there  was  no  real  subterfuge  about  it.   He  was  constantly  quoted 
in  the  papers,  just  as  the  Las  Vegas  gamblers  are  now,  on  the  odds 
on  elections  and  the  odds  on  this,  that,  and  the  other  thing. 

But  he  suddenly  got  thrown  in  the  can,  and  what  had  happened  was 
that  Buck  Caddel,  this  new  man  in  the  attorney  general's  office, 
had  suddenly  appeared  from  Los  Angeles  and  went  down  to  Heller's 
place  and  had  a  conversation  with  Heller,  as  a  result  of  which  he 
immediately  arrested  him  and  took  him  down  and  booked  him.   He 
didn't  have  any  evidence  or  anything  else,  and  the  Oakland  police 
then  went  around  to  Heller's  place  and  found  enough  papers  around 
there  so  they  thought  they  had  a  case,  and  they  put  a  charge 
against  him. 

This  created  real  commotion,  especially  when  Heller  said  that 
what  had  happened  was  that  Caddel  had  come  in  there  and  told  him 
that  he  wasn't  going  to  be  permitted  to  operate  unless  he  paid  off 
at  so  much  a  month  to  the  attorney  general's  office.   Frank  Coakley 
and  the  Oakland  Police  Department  and  Sheriff  Gleason  were  really 
excited  about  that.   I  think  they  ended  up  by  making  some  kind  of 
a  charge  against  Buck  Caddel.   I  guess  they  brought  him  before  the 
grand  jury;  that  was  it. 

Anyhow,  Buck  Caddel  had  to  have  a  lawyer.   So  his  lawyer  comes  up 
from  Los  Angeles  to  represent  him  in  this  case.   His  lawyer  turned 
out  to  be  Murray  Chotiner,  who  later  was  such  a  pal  of  Richard 
Nixon's.   Chotiner 's  now  dead.   Then  we  found  that  Caddel  had  been 
to  Santa  Cruz  and  had  hustled  the  slot  machine  operators  down  there 
around  the  pier.  We  began  to  get  more  and  more  concerned  and  thought 
there  was  something  really  rotten  going  on  in  the  attorney  general's 
office,  and  we  couldn't  ignore  it. 

Stein:   What  did  you  do? 


275 


Olney:   We  had  to  change  our  views  many  times  as  to  what  it  really  showed. 
There  was  a  period  when  we  thought  that  Fred  Howser  himself  was  the 
kingpin  of  the  whole  thing.   Then  as  we  went  deeper  into  it  we  saw 
many  things  indicating  that  he  wasn't  at  all,  that  it  was  beyond  his 
control.  We  finally  concluded  that  Fred  probably  knew  very  little 
about  it.  He  had  been  put  in  just  as  a  front  man,  and  he  was 
satisfied  just  to  be  a  front  man. 

Stein:   And  he  had  no  idea? 

Olney:   Oh,  he  had  ideas,  but  he  didn't  care;  he  didn't  know  the  details 
and  wasn't  taking  any  active  part  in  it.  Whether  he  ever  got  any 
money  or  not,  we  never  knew.   Of  course,  at  first  we  thought  he 
must,  but  it  never  showed  up.   And  it  didn't  show  up  after  he  got 
out  of  office,  either.   His  history  is  a  strange  one,  and  if  we  had 
known  as  much  about  his  early  history  and  how  he  became  district 
attorney  in  Los  Angeles  County,  we  wouldn't  have  been  as  surprised 
by  the  unimportance  of  the  role  that  he  played. 

Buck  Caddel  was  convicted  and  served  a  term,  and  then  he  got  out. 
One  day  he  was  driving  in  his  car  in  Burbank  where  John  Hanson 
lived.   John  was  our  chief  investigator,  and  he  made  the  case, 
really.  Well,  John  was  out  watering  his  garden,  and  Buck  went  by 
and  stopped  and  came  over  to  talk  to  him  and  discussed  the  whole 
thing  with  Hanson  at  length.   He  said,  "You  know,  you  boys  always 
thought  Fred  Howser  was  the  kingpin  in  this  thing,  but,  you  know,  1 
don't  think  I  ever  talked  to  Fred  Howser  more  than  three  or  four 
times  in  my  life.   I  never  took  any  orders  from  him.   I  always  took 
them  from  [Duke]  Bolger."  And  we  had  pretty  much  come  to  that  con 
clusion  before  it  was  confirmed  by  Caddel  himself.   Caddel  had  no 
animosity  at  all  as  far  as  Hanson  was  concerned.   He  knew  that  John 
was  just  doing  his  job. 

Stein:   That's  interesting.  We've  gotten  on  to  that  whole  story  by  asking 
if  the  commission  was  a  study  group,  and  it  sounds  as  though  what 
happened  was  that  you  evolved  into  something  that  wasn't  quite  just 
a  study  group. 

Olney:   Well,  it  wasn't.   It  became  an  investigative  agency.   Our  whole 

staff  and  our  entire  effort  had  to  turn  into  investigation.   That's 
the  only  way  you  could  get  the  information  that  was  needed  to  make 
any  kind  of  a  report  or  to  study  or  anything  else  on  our  subject, 
which  was  organized  crime.  We  had  to  find  out  what  was  going  on 
and  who  was  doing  it.   So  that  commission  followed  a  very  different 
course  than  the  other  four  commissions  did. 

Stein:   The  other  four  remained  primarily  study  groups. 
Olney:   Oh,  yes. 


276 


The  Crime  Commission  at  Work 


The  Role  of  the  Public  Utilities  Commission:  The  Wire  Services  Cases 


Stein:   I  noticed  that  early  in  the  report  the  Public  Utilities  Commission 
played  a  very  important  cooperative  role. 

Olney:   That  was  in  connection  with  the  wire  service.   The  place  where  you 
look  for  organized  crime  is  where  the  money  is.   Organized  crime  is 
an  awfully  vague  kind  of  subject.   But  there  are  lots  of  crimes 
that  can  be  organized  that  you  wouldn't  include  within  the  usual 
meaning  of  that  phrase.  We  intended  it  to  refer  to  the  kind  of 
activity  that  is  criminal  in  nature  and  is  based  on  greed,  and  an 
organization  to  get  rich  by  criminal  means.   At  this  particular 
time  we  found  out  that  the  place  where  the  most  money  was,  where 
you  could  really  make  money  by  breaking  the  law,  was  in  the  gambling- 
prostitution-narcotics  areas. 

The  bookmakers  were  the  biggest  of  them  all,  as  far  as  money  was 
concerned.   I  had  been  through  the  wars  with  Annenberg  and  the 
Nationwide  News  Service  before  World  War  II,  and  when  I  got  into 
this  position  with  the  crime  commission  I  found  that  following  the 
war,  when  racing  was  resumed — it  all  closed  down  during  the  war — but 
when  it  was  resumed,  the  bookmaking  racket  revived  along  with  it. 
That  meant  that  we  better  take  a  good  look  at  the  wire  service  and 
who  was  operating  and  how  it  was  working. 

Of  course,  Bugsy  Siegel's  murder  came  along  right  about  that 
time,  which  was  one  of  those  spectacular  assassinations  that  seemed 
quite  clear  that  it  had  grown  out  of  the  wire  service,  out  of  con 
tests  over  that  money.   So  we  began  investigating  that.   But  besides 
getting  the  facts,  we  also  wanted  to  do  and  have  done  the  things 
that  needed  to  be  done  that  would  bring  it  to  an  end. 

We  had  found  out  years  before  that  the  bookie  racket  cannot 
operate  without  that  up-to-the-minute  news  that  the  wire  service 
alone  can  provide.  We  took  a  look  at  their  communications  system. 
It  was  all  done  with  the  telephone  company,  and  some  with  Western 
Union.  We  had  no  authority,  no  subpoena  powers  or  anything  else, 
but  we  have  a  Public  Utilities  Commission  and  we  just  went  and 
talked  our  problems  over  with  them. 

Harold  Huls  was  the  chairman  of  the  Public  Utilities  Commission 
at  that  time.   I  had  known  him,  I've  forgotten  where;  I  know  we 
were  very  friendly.   But  he  said  that  he  thought  the  commission 
ought  to  take  a  position  that  a  telephone  company  ought  not  and 
need  not  provide  service  when  they  knew  that  the  service  was  simply 
being  used  to  violate  the  law. 


277 


Olney:   The  Pacific  Telephone  Company,  unlike  those  in  the  East,  had  always 
been  very  cooperative  on  this,  and  they  had  told  us,  "We  don't  want 
to  be  in  the  business  of  serving  a  lot  of  racketeers  if  we  don't 
have  to.   But  we're  a  public  utility  and  that  means  we  have  to 
offer  our  service  to  the  public,  and  we  can't  refuse  anyone  without 
substantial  reason.   If  you'll  give  us  the  reason,  we'll  stop  the 
service." 

That's  what  we  did.   Then,  when  they  started  pulling  the  tele 
phones  out,  the  wire  service  and  the  bookies  went  before  the  Public 
Utilities  Commission  to  try  to  get  orders  reinstating  the  service, 
without  any  success.   That's  a  long  litigation.   The  story  of  it  is 
all  in  the  reports.   But  there  again,  to  our  considerable  astonish 
ment,  we  found  ourselves  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  thing  from  the 
attorney  general  of  California. 

Stein:   You  mean  he  was  arguing  for  the — 

Olney:   Yes,  for  the  wire  service.   And  he  wouldn't  appear  and  fight  this 
battle  before  the  Utilities  Commission;  we  had  to  do  it.   I  don't 
know  how  many  days  I  spent  in  trial  on  that  thing,  a  couple  of 
weeks,  I  think,  because  the  attorney  general  wouldn't.   I  had  some 
authorization  from  the  governor  to  do  it. 

Stein:    I  was  going  to  ask  you,  were  you  appearing,  then,  representing  the 
State  of  California?   Or  the  crime  commission? 

Olney:   Not  the  crime  commission,  no.   I  really  can't  remember. 

Stein:   Well,  that's  not  important.   That's  easily  found  by  just  going  back 
to  the  records  of  the  trial. 

Olney:   I  don't  remember  what  hat  I  was  supposed  to  be  wearing.   [laughter] 


Gathering  Information 


Stein:    I  guess  the  next  question  on  all  this  was  how  information  was 
gathered.  We  talked  about  this  coming  back  from  lunch. 

Olney:   We  had  a  staff  of  investigators  and  they  were  all  experienced  men. 
They  all  had  good  personal  relations  with  numbers  of  other  regular 
law  enforcement  agencies  like  sheriffs  and  chiefs  of  police,  or  the 
FBI  or  the  Treasury  or  whatnot.   They  went  to  those  offices  and 
were  given  a  great  deal  of  very,  very  valuable  information.   My 
guess  would  be  that  about  75  to  80  percent,  maybe  more  than  that,  of 
the  information  we  got  for  the  crime  commissions  came  from  other  law 
enforcement  agencies  first. 


278 


Olney:   But  we  made  a  different  use  of  it.  We  were  concerned  with  the  whole 
state;  they  were  only  concerned  with  a  city  or  a  county,  as  a  rule. 
It  was  their  duty  to  try  to  make  cases  against  individuals.   We  were 
not  in  the  business  of  making  cases.  We  were  trying  to  get  the 
picture  of  what  it  was  in  general,  its  methods  and  techniques,  and, 
as  best  we  could,  information  about  who  was  involved. 

So  our  files  and  records  were  different  from  those  of  the  ordin 
ary  law  enforcement  agencies.  We  had  files  by  counties,  and  we  also 
had  files  by  subject  which  included  duplicate  copies  of  the  county 
material,  so  you  could  go  to  a  subject  file  and  get  everything  we 
had  in  every  county  on  that  subject.   Or  you  could  go  to  a  county 
file  and  get  everything  we  had  that  was  supposed  to  be  going  on  in 
that  county. 

These  men  were  very  skillful  in  their  reporting,  I  thought.   They 
were  very  careful,  meticulous,  and  extremely  thorough.   The  amount 
of  detail  that's  in  the  files  and  the  reports  is  astonishing.   But 
it  proved  to  be  very,  very  valuable. 

I  may  have  stressed  our  other  activities  too  much  at  the  expense 
of  what  we  did  do  in  the  way  of  studying,  because  we  took  these 
reports  and  put  the  things  together  and  got  a  picture  of  the 
activities  of  the  slot  machine  racket  in  all  the  various  parts  of 
the  state,  and  the  bookmaking  racket,  too,  from  these  reports  they 
got.   But  the  basic  information  and  most  of  the  hard  investigative 
work  was  done  by  the  regular  agencies  who  were  interested  in  helping 
us. 

Maybe  people  don't  realize  it,  but  it  is  a  fact  that  people 
engaged  in  law  enforcement  work  want  to  be  in  an  honest  agency. 
They  don't  like  to  be  in  a  place  that's  loaded  with  crooks  and 
that's  engaged  in  corruption,  and  they  resent  it  very,  very  much. 
They  feel  like  they've  been  betrayed  personally  when  they  see  these 
things  going  on.   So  to  have  a  central  place  where  this  information 
could  be  deposited  and  accumulated  and  put  to  some  use  suited  them 
very  well. 

Stein:   You  mentioned  that  the  commission  itself  never  used  telephone  taps. 
Olney :   Never . 
Stein:   Why  is  that? 

Olney:   It  was  against  the  law  by  that  time.  When  you  interviewed  me 

before  about  the  years  when  I  was  in  the  attorney  general's  office 
and  in  the  Alameda  and  Contra  Costa  County  offices,  at  that  time 
we  were  of  the  view  that  there  was  no  law  that  prohibited  law 
officers  from  tapping  telephones  in  the  investigation  of  crime. 


279 


Olney:   The  wording  of  the  statute,  to  us,  didn't  seem  to  cover  it,  either 
the  state  or  the  federal  statutes.   But  over  the  years  there  was  a 
series  of  decisions  by  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  in  particular 
which  changed  our  views  as  to  what  the  law  was.  We  were  horrified 
to  find  that  in  one  case  we  had  a  tap  on  when  we  read  the  decision 
of  the  Court  that  they  were  illegal.  We  sure  got  that  off  in  a 
hurry,  and  never  went  back  to  it. 

Stein:   You  were  telling  me  the  story  of  how  the  Los  Angeles  police  wired 
Mickey  Cohen's  house.   That  was  somehow  within  the  letter  of  the 
law? 

Olney:   Well,  all  I  know  about  it  was  this:  We  had  a  series  of  homicides 
where  members  of  Mickey  Cohen's  gang  were  being  killed  off.   Some 
of  them  were  shot;  there  was  one  occasion  when  one  of  them  was  shot 
along  with  one  of  Fred  Howser's  men  who  was  acting  as  a  bodyguard 
for  him  or  something  that  night.   Then  there  were  two  or  three 
others  who  just  vanished,  and  the  rumor  went  all  over  the  under 
world  that  they'd  been  knocked  off.   Of  course,  we  made  inquiries 
and  investigations  and  became  satisfied  that  they  had,  indeed,  been 
killed,  although  their  bodies  were  never  found;  no  trace  was  ever 
found  of  anything.  We  were  making  inquiries  of  that  kind  and,  of 
course,  we  were  wondering  what  in  the  world  was  going  on  with 
Cohen's  outfit.   They  were  on  the  receiving  end  of  this  stuff. 

One  of  our  investigators  knew  George  White,  who  was  the  agent 
in  charge  of  the  Federal  Bureau  of  Narcotics  in  Northern  California. 
George  was  a  very  rough  customer,  indeed.   He  was  one  of  the  tough 
est  fellows  that  I  have  ever  encountered.   There  was  a  fine  young 
lawyer  in  Oakland  who  served  with  George  White  in  the  Burma  theater 
during  World  War  II,  and  he  described  George  to  me  and  he  said, 
"George  would  just  as  soon  kill  a  man  as  have  a  steak  for  break 
fast."   [laughter] 

George  was  very  enthusiastic  about  his  job.   He  just  loved  raids. 
When  he'd  go  on  a  raid,  he'd  always  go  right  through  the  door.   He 
never  bothered  to  open  it;  he  'd  just  go  right  through  it.   He  was 
an  early-day  Kojak.   [laughter]   But  he  was  very  friendly  with  us. 

One  time  he  gave  us  an  extensive  transcript  because  of  the  light 
that  it  threw  on  what  was  going  on  in  Mickey  Cohen's  gang.   This 
was  a  transcript  of  conversations  between  Mickey  and  many  of  his 
other  hoodlums  and  hoodlum  friends.   It  was  evident  that  there  had 
been  a  microphone  somewhere.   It  was  pretty  plain  that  it  was  in 
his  house  somewhere.  We  read  it,  and  our  interest  in  it  was  in  the 
information,  but  we  did  not  ask  any  questions  about  how  it  was  done. 
There  was  nothing  that  we  needed  to  know  for  our  purposes.   I 
thought  the  less  we  knew  about  it,  the  better. 


280 


Olney:   Later  on  a  case  came  up  that  was  pretty  sticky.   It  involved  a  man 
arrested  on  a  narcotics  violation  in  Los  Angeles,  and  he  was  taken 
before  a  magistrate  and  released  on  bail.   He  got  in  his  car  and 
drove  across  the  Tehachapis  and  up  the  valley.   There  was  some  wild 
automobile  ride  that  was  involved  in  that.   He  was  chased  by  the 
State  Highway  Patrol  and  some  deputy  sheriffs  in  the  valley  some 
where.   They  had  a  terrific  chase  at  a  hundred  miles  an  hour  or 
faster.   They  finally  got  him.   He  had  a  small  amount  of  narcotics 
in  the  car.  He  threw  the  stuff  out  of  the  car  and  they  were  able 
to  find  it.   That  got  the  state  authorities  into  the  thing,  as  well 
as  the  federal. 

He  was  then  taken  back  to  Los  Angeles,  and  then  he  proceeded  to 
unload  everything  he  knew  to  the  law  enforcement  officers.   I  think 
he  talked  to  the  state  people  first  and  then  they  turned  him  over  to 
White  and  he  gave  White  more  information.   White  wanted  to  use  him 
before  the  federal  grand  jury.   They  went  back  to  Fresno.   This  is 
awfully  hard  to  remember  now. 

How  did  we  get  into  it?   I  know  we  did  because  I  made  a  trip 
down  to  Bakersfield  and  I  talked  to  that  fellow  myself  in  the  Tajon 
Hotel  in  Bakersfield.   There  was  some  payoff  in  the  state  narcotics 
officers,  according  to  him. 

Anyway,  he  went  back  to  Fresno  and  was  awaiting  the  federal  grand 
jury  hearing.   One  Sunday  afternoon  he  was  snoozing  on  the  couch  in 
the  living  room.   He  was  alone — his  mother  and  father  were  in  the 
other  end  of  the  house — and  somebody  came  into  the  house  and  shot 
him  right  through  the  head  and  killed  him  while  he  was  asleep,  and 
got  away.   It  was  to  keep  him  from  testifying. 

It  was  in  that  connection  that  these  transcripts  became  of  more 
interest  than  they  had  originally.   I  don't  remember  why,  but  they 
did.   After  that  occasion,  there  was  some  reason  for  George  White 
telling  me  where  he  got  the  transcripts.   I  thought  it  was  something 
they  had  done;  it  wasn't. 

He  told  me  that  he  had  gotten  them  from  the  Los  Angeles  police, 
and  that  the  story  of  it  was  that  when  Mickey  Cohen  had  built  a  new 
house  out  in  Beverly  Hills  someplace,  the  Los  Angeles  police  had 
learned  that  the  house  was  under  construction.   So  they  went  in 
there  while  it  was  being  built  and  put  in  wires,  as  you  said,  right 
along  with  the  plumbing,  so  that  the  whole  house  was  wired  from 
inside  the  walls  on  this  thing  and  they  could  listen  to  anything 
that  was  going  on  in  the  house.   That's  where  these  transcripts 
came  from.  You  asked  me  if  it  was  against  the  law,  and  I  suppose 
it  was.   I  don't  know.  We  didn't  do  anything  about  it,  didn't  feel 
that  we  had  to. 


281 


Stein:   Was  this  fellow  you  mentioned  that  was  shot  through  the  head  in 
Fresno — was  that  Abraham  Davidian? 

Olney:   That's  it.   Davidian.   I  guess  that's  described  in  our  report. 
Stein:   Yes,  it  is. 

Olney:   I'm  afraid  my  memory  is  very  hazy.   I  haven't  read  the  thing 
recently. 


Attorney  General  Howser 


Stein:   I'd  like  to  talk  a  little  bit  about  Attorney  General  Howser.   It 

seems  to  me  he's  a  fairly  large  feature  in  some  of  your  investiga 
tions.   Do  I  have  it  correctly  that  shortly  after  the  commission 
was  organized,  at  least  his  initial  response  was  to  give  support  to 
the  commission? 

Olney:   Yes.  He  was  there  at  that  initial  meeting  on  the  first  of  November 
in  1947  and  made  some  remarks  welcoming  the  commission  and  offering 
full  cooperation  in  every  way.   I  hadn't  heard  all  these  rumors  at 
all.   I  took  it  at  face  value.   I  thought  we  were  going  to  have  a 
good  relationship. 

Stein:   Then  I  think  it  was  Arthur  Sherry  who  said  in  his  interview  that  at 
some  time  after  that,  when  you  became  aware  of  what  was  going  on  in 
his  office,  at  any  rate,  Governor  Warren  called  him  back  to  Sacra 
mento  for  a  meeting  that,  I  believe,  you  were  at. 

Olney:   When  he  called  Howser? 
Stein:   Yes. 

Olney:   No.   I  did  not  attend  any  meeting  with  Fred  Howser  and  the  governor. 
But  the  governor  did  what  he  had  done  many  times  before  in  dealing 
with  this  kind  of  situation.   He  called  Fred  Howser  in  and  told  him 
that  he  was  getting  these  awful  stories  about  bribery  and  corruption 
and  the  organization  of  rackets  in  his  office,  and  that  it  was  very 
distressing  and  causing  him  great  concern,  and  that  as  governor  he 
couldn't  permit  things  like  that  to  continue  on.   He  said  that  he 
didn't  know  whether  Howser  had  ever  heard  any  of  these  things  or 
not,  but  he  wanted  him  to  know  that  they  were  being  said,  there  did 
seem  to  be  some  substance  to  some  of  it,  and  that  he  hoped  that  he 
would  take  every  step  to  put  an  end  to  it.   But  I  doubt  that  there 
was  anyone  else  present.  What  Earl  Warren  did  was  to  treat  Howser 
just  as  he  had  treated  Sheriff  [Burton]  Becker  in  Alameda  County 
when  he  first  had  to  deal  with  him. 


282 


Stein:   But  I  gather  that  Howser  did  absolutely  nothing. 

Olney:   Of  course,  he  said  he  was  horrified  at  all  this  and  didn't  know  it 
and  couldn't  believe  this  kind  of  thing  would  go  on,  and  he'd  make 
sure  that  anything  like  that  would  be  stopped.   But  nothing  was 
stopped. 

Stein:   Was  that  before  or  after  the  prosecutions  in  Mendocino  County? 
Olney:   Before. 

Stein:    I  found  clippings  in  the  San  Francisco  Examiner  or  the  Oakland 

Tribune.   Howser  launched  a  full-scale  attack  on  you  in  about  June 
of  1948.   I  copied  down  some  of  them.   On  June  16,  1948,  the 
Examiner  reported  that  you,  in  a  telegram,  had  indicated  that  you 
had  evidence  that  Buck  Caddel  lied  and  was  implicated  in  the 
Mendocino  bribery  and  shakedown,  and  that  there  had  been  some 
falsifying  of  some  records  that  involved  Caddel.   Howser,  in 
response,  sent  a  telegram  saying,  "I'm  through  being  pushed  around. 
The  telegrams  Olney  and  I  exchanged  today  mean  open  warfare.   Olney 
is  a  man  who  is  misleading  the  crime  commission  and  he  should  be 
unmasked."  Your  response,  said  the  Examiner,  was  to  laugh  and  say 
that  you  had  no  comment . 

Olney:    [laughter]   I  remember.   That's  correct. 

Stein:   That  was  followed  a  couple  of  weeks  later  by  a  press  statement,  I 
guess,  a  five-hundred-word  blistering  attack  by  Walter  Lentz,  who 
accused  you  of  machinations  and  conniving,  personal  aggrandizement, 
and  of  being  a  political  gnat  trying  to  swell  himself  into  public 
importance.   He  called  you  "a  former  political  errandboy  dropped 
from  the  attorney  general's  payroll  who  has  a  new  state  payroll  job 
and  developed  into  a  political  lawyer  satiated  with  a  desire  for 
cheap  publicity  and  an  overweening  ambition  for  personal  aggrandize 
ment  over  what  he  hopes  may  become  the  political  victims  of  his 
uncontrolled  character  assassinations." 

Olney:    [laughter]   Yes,  I  remember  reading  that.   Some  of  my  friends  used 
to  accuse  me  of  putting  Walter  Lentz  up  to  that  particular  state 
ment.   They  told  me  that  that  would  have  cost  $100,000  to  get  that 
from  some  publicity  agent,  and  here  I  was  getting  it  free, 
[laughter]   I'm  sure  you  didn't  find  any  rejoinder  from  me  to  that. 

Stein:   No,  actually  the  Trib  said  that  you  were  on  a  two-week  camping  trip 
in  the  High  Sierra  and  you  could  not  be  reached  for  comment. 

Olney:   Well,  that  was  right.   I  was. 


283 


Stein:    I  gather  that  the  climax  of  that  little  dispute  was  that  Howser 
then  declared  your  job  illegal  and  chopped  you  off  the  payroll? 

Olney:   It  wasn't  anything  crude  like  that.   Somebody  in  his  office  wrote 
him  an  opinion  that  indicated  my  position  was  illegal  and  so  I 
shouldn't  be  paid.   And  he  expressed  reluctance  with  having  to  go 
along  with  the  opinion  on  it.   This  made  Governor  Warren  very 
indignant  and  he  said  that  he'd  pay  me  out  of  his  own  pocket  if  he 
had  to. * 


Stein:   Did  it  ever  come  to  that? 

Olney:   No.   It  produced  a  very  bad  reaction.   It  backfired  on  Howser.   I 

don't  know  whether  they  recalled  the  opinion  or  reversed  it  or  what, 
but  they  finally  concluded  that  I  was  entitled  to  draw  a  check. 

Stein:   I  guess  it  was  during  that  feud  that  this  rumor  was  started  that 

what  you  were  aiming  at  in  all  of  this  was  the  attorney  generalship. 

Olney:   Yes,  that's  right. 

Stein:   The  defense  attorneys  in  the  Mendocino  prosecution  in  their  closing 
argument,  according  to  the  newspapers,  charged  that  the  case  was  a 
political  scheme  to  smear  Howser,  and  that  the  motivating  factor, 
presumably,  was  your  ambition  to  take  his  place  as  the  state  attorney 
general. 

Olney:   Yes,  I  know  that  that  was  said.   I  didn't  recall  that  it  was  said 
at  that  trial;  I  guess  it  was.   Incidentally,  I  didn't  attend  the 
trial.   I  went  up  in  connection  with  the  investigations  sometimes, 
but  I  was  not  present  any  time  during  the  trial.   But  there  were 
many,  many  statements  made,  not  just  by  Lentz  and  Howser,  but  by 
others  indicating  that  they  thought  I  was  getting  ready  to  run  for 
attorney  general.   The  reason  for  it  was  because  I  was  getting  all 
this  free  publicity.   I  was  in  the  headlines  day  after  day  after 
day.   These  boys  were  kicking  me  there  and  they  were  even  spelling 
my  name  right  [laughter],  so  I  had  all  the  makings  of  a  politician's 
publicity. 

It  gave  me  some  concern  as  to  what  the  commission  members  would 
think  about  this,  because  they  didn't  know  one  another  very  well 
and  they  didn't  know  me  at  all  except  in  our  acquaintance  in  this 
commission  work.   They  were  not  politicians  themselves.   I  felt 
they  must  be  wondering,  "Is  this  fellow  really  aiming  to  use  us  as 
a  springboard  to  become  attorney  general?" 

I  finally  decided  that  I  just  better  put  it  right  on  top  of  the 
table  with  them.   In  one  of  the  meetings,  I  referred  to  all  these 
statements  and  said  that  I  thought  they  might  wonder  about  it  and  I 


See  Appendix  D. 


284 


Olney:   wanted  them  to  know  what  my  intentions  were,  and  that  is  that  I 

was  not  going  to  run  for  any  public  office  because  of  this  activity. 
The  reason  was  that  I  felt  that  if  I  did,  it  would  be  thought  in 
many  areas  that  I  had  just  used  the  commission  and  that  would 
degrade  the  public  regard  for  the  commission  and  for  its  work.   So 
I  said,  "They  can  print  anything  they  want,  of  course,  but  I  want 
to  tell  you  I'm  not  going  to  run  for  attorney  general  or  any  other 
job."  So  it  did  bother  me  to  that  extent. 

Stein:   Howser  reiterated  the  theme  that  he  was  being  persecuted  by  the 

crime  commission  in  his  address  to  the  Union  Square  Optimists  Club 
at  the  Sir  Francis  Drake  Hotel  in  May  of  1949.  He  said  that  the 
crime  commission  was  appointed,  in  his  opinion,  "by  Governor  Warren 
for  personal  attacks  upon  me  and  upon  the  attorney  general's  office." 
But  he  made  a  couple  of  other  allegations  in  that  speech  that 
interested  me.   One  was  that  he  charged  that  the  crime  commission 
had  no  evidence,  that  all  the  evidence  was  hearsay.   I  wondered  if 
that  was  just  a  smear  campaign. 

Olney:   Well,  I  don't  know  what  he  was  referring  to  there  because  that 

speech  was  after  Caddel's  conviction.   I  don't  know  how  to  describe 
that.  We  did  have  an  awful  lot  of  hearsay,  of  course.   But  we 
weren't  publishing  that;  we  weren't  using  that.  The  things  that  we 
published  were  hard  and  factual,  and  we  were  satisfied  they  were 
very  good  evidence  and  would  stand  up  in  court.  We  were  never  even 
challenged  on  it. 

Stein:   He  also  made  a  statement,  and  I've  seen  this  elsewhere  and  it  con 
fused  me:  he  claimed  that  two  members  of  the  crime  commission  had 
connections  with  the  Santa  Anita  race  track. 

Olney:   Yes,  I  saw  that.  When  I  read  that  statement  of  his  over  this 

morning,  I  saw  he  made  that  statement,  and  I'm  not  sure  I  know  who 
he  would  be  referring  to. 

Stein:   He  was  referring  to  [William]  Jeffers  and  [Harvey]  Mudd. 

Olney:    It  may  be  that  they  were  on  the  Santa  Anita  board.   I  guess  they 

must  have  been.   Jeffers,  of  course,  was  former  president  of  Union 
Pacific  and  was  the  rubber  coordinator  during  the  war.  Harvey  Mudd 
was  president  of  the  Pacific  Alkali  Company  but  also  of  Cyprus 
Copper  Mines;  he  was  a  mining  engineer  particularly,  and  those  big 
Cyprus  Copper  Mines  were  one  of  the  companies  with  which  he  was 
associated.   I  don't  know  whether  he  was  the  president  of  the 
company  or  what.   And  men  like  that  are  the  kind  of  people  they 
like  to  get  on  a  board  of  directors  of  nearly  anything.   I  guess 
they  both  liked  horses.   I  don't  think  they  had  much  taste  for 
bookmakers.   [laughter] 


285 


Stein:    I  wouldn't  suspect  so  if  they  were  sitting  on  the  crime  commission. 
But  Bowser's  statement  confused  me.   I  gather  that  at  one  point 
there  was  an  abortive  attempt  to  recall  Howser.   Do  you  remember 
that? 

Olney:   No,  I  don't. 
Stein:   A  recall  campaign? 

Olney:   Oh,  you  had  a  statement  marked  in  there  that  was  made  by  a  couple  of 
San  Francisco  lawyers,  members  of  the  bar,  criticizing  Howser  for 
neglect  of  duty  and  things  of  this  kind? 

Stein:   Yes,  I  think  that  was  the  one. 

Olney:    I  don't  know  anything  about  that.   I  never  knew  those  two  men,  never 
met  them  either  before  or  afterwards.   I  don't  think  anything  ever 
came  of  that.   I  don't  remember  any  effort  to  have  him  recalled. 


Drew  Pearson  and  Ralph  Allen 


Stein:   Two  things  I  wanted  to  ask  you  about  before  we  get  onto  the  book- 
making  are  Howser 's  libel  suit  against  Drew  Pearson  and  Ralph  Allen, 
and  then  who  Duke  Bolger  was  and  what  he  did.   I  don't  know  if  you 
want  to  get  into  Ralph  Allen,  since  we've  discovered  that  he  wasn't 
the  person  we  were  thinking  he  was. 

Olney:   Ralph  Allen  was  very  much  involved  with  Drew  Pearson.   Does  Pearson 
mention  him  in  his  book?  He  must. 

Stein:   I  think  he  does,  yes.* 

Olney:   I  can  put  our  dealings  with  Ralph  Allen  right  in  a  nutshell.   He  got 
in  touch  with  us  and  claimed  that  he  had  been  working  for  a  book 
maker  in  the  years  that  Fred  Howser  was  city  attorney  for  the  City 
of  Long  Beach.   Under  their  charter,  the  city  attorney  prosecutes 
criminal  cases,  which  isn't  the  usual  situation. 


See  Tyler  Abell,  ed.,  Drew  Pearson;  Diaries  1949-1959  (New  York, 
1974). 


286 


Olney:   Allen  claimed  that  the  bookmakers  were  paying  off  in  cash  to  Fred 

Howser.   I  don't  remember  whether  it  was  only  for  campaign  purposes 
or  not.   I  think  it  was  just  regular  payoffs.   Anyhow,  he  said  that 
he  himself  had  taken  money  from  this  particular  bookmaker  whom  he 
named — it  was  a  place  of  business  we  knew  all  about — and  had  given 
it  to  Fred  Howser  himself.   If  true,  the  information  was  important, 
but  it  happened  a  long  time  back  and  it  was  difficult  to  see  how  we 
could  get  corroboration  for  it  or  how  we  could  disprove  it.   But  we 
tried. 

We  talked  to  the  man  a  long  time  and  he  was  playing  a  cagey  game 
with  us.   He  wanted  to  get  paid,  and  the  more  I  talked  with  him  and 
the  more  he  told  us  about  what  he  would  be  able  to  supply,  the 
plainer  it  was  that  he  was  trying  to  tell  us  things  that  he  thought 
we  wanted  to  hear.   It's  difficult  to  deal  with  people  like  that. 
You  can't  just  throw  them  out  because  sometimes  they  do  know  things. 
So  we  told  him  that  we  were  not  going  to  put  him  on  the  payroll, 
that  we  couldn't  do  that;  but  he  had  this  long  story  to  tell  and  if 
he  would  go  to  the  time  and  trouble  to  put  it  in  writing  so  that  we 
could  write  it  up  and  have  it  in  usable  form,  we  would  pay  him  for 
it.   He  agreed  to  do  that  and  he  did.   I  think  he  made  a  seventeen- 
page  statement.   But  the  statement  contained  no  information  that 
gave  us  any  way  of  leading  into  any  corroborative  evidence.  We  were 
just  as  badly  off  as  we  were  before.   So  we  paid  him  and  thanked  him 
and  said  we  couldn't  make  any  further  use  of  him,  and  he  went  on  his 
way. 

Apparently  he  got  in  touch  with  Drew  Pearson  and  I  think  he  must 
have  sent  Pearson  a  copy  of  the  statement  that  he'd  given  to  us, 
because  later  on  during  the  time  of  the  preparation  of  the  trial 
between  Howser  and  Pearson,  my  recollection  is  that  Pearson's 
attorney  had  a  copy  of  that  statement  which  he  must  have  gotten 
from  Allen.   Pearson  asked  me  once  about  Ralph  Allen,  when  we  were 
having  dinner  in  the  St.  Francis  Hotel  in  San  Francisco,  and  again 
over  the  telephone;  and  Jack  Anderson,  who  was  also  working  for 
Pearson  at  the  time,  also  asked  me  about  him. 

I  told  him  that  we  had  taken  the  statement  from  Ralph  Allen  to 
find  out  what  his  story  was  but  that  we  had  been  utterly  unable  to 
find  any  corroboration  for  it  at  all;  that  we  were  very  suspicious 
that  Allen  was  trying  to  tell  us  what  we  wanted  to  hear  because  we 
knew  that  he  wanted  to  go  on  the  payroll;  and  that  we  intended  to 
make  no  use  whatever  of  the  story  because  we  didn't  think  it  could 
be  supported  with  any  proof .   Pearson  went  ahead  and  used  it  in 
one  of  his  broadcasts,  some  part  of  it,  and  it  brought  this  libel 
suit. 

Stein:   And  you  were  saying  earlier  that  that  was  finally  settled? 


287 


Olney:   The  libel  suit  was  filed  by  Fred  Howser  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 
He  could  have  filed  it  in  California  and  probably  got  service  on 
Pearson;  I  don't  know.   It  was  always  a  little  strange  that  it  was 
filed  three  thousand  miles  away  from  his  own  base. 

But  the  case  was  tried.   Roger  Robb,  who  is  now  a  judge  on  the 
United  States  Court  of  Appeals,  represented  Howser;  and  William  P. 
Rogers,  who  was  later  deputy  attorney  general  of  the  United  States, 
then  attorney  general,  and  later  secretary  of  state,  represented 
Pearson.  The  case  was  tried,  submitted  to  a  jury,  and  the  jury 
found  for  the  defendant. 

Stein:   Pearson  was  also  involved  in  a  federal  suit  that  you  mentioned  at 
lunch,  a  federal  case  against  Walter  Lentz. 

Olney:   Yes,  he  was.   I  knew  a  great  deal  about  that,  most  of  which  I've 
forgotten.   There  was  some  other  witness.   I  think  his  name  was 
[James  T.]  Mulloy.  I  guess  it  had  to  do  with  the  Guarantee  Finance 
Company,  which  was  a  bookmaking  operation  that  the  crime  commission 
had  exposed. 

The  federal  government  took  an  interest  in  it — I  think  it  was 
because  of  the  unpaid  income  tax  aspects  of  it — and  wanted  to  call 
Mulloy  before  the  federal  grand  jury.   They  took  a  statement  from 
him.   He  gave  testimony  that  was  incriminating,  not  only  to  the 
Guarantee  Finance  people,  but,  I  think,  to  Walter  Lentz  too.   I  may 
be  wrong  about  that. 

Anyway,  Lentz  then  got  in  touch  with  this  witness,  Mulloy,  and 
got  him  to  change  his  story.   This  upset  the  U.S.  Attorney,  Ernie 
Tolin,  considerably.   So  they  got  a  hold  of  Mulloy,  and  Mulloy 
switched  once  more  and  went  back  to  his  original  story,  and  then 
told  them  about  Lentz 's  importuning  him  on  his  testimony.   The 
government  filed  a  case  against  Lentz — I  guess  it  was  an  indictment 
against  Lentz,  I  believe  when  he  was  in  Fresno.   He  was  tried  there. 

Pearson  was  very  active  in  that  and  I  can't  remember  exactly  why. 
His  son-in-law,  George  Arnold,  was  very  active  in  helping  him  in 
that  case.   And  I  was  friendly  with  George.   I  tried  to  help  George. 
My  recollection  is  that  the  case  was  eventually  tried  and  Walter 
Lentz  was  acquitted. 

Stein:   Do  you  want  to  say  a  couple  of  words  about  Duke  Bolger? 

Olney:   Well,  I  don't  think  anything  more  than  I  have.   Let  me  stop  and 
think.   I  don't  want  to  be  repeating  stuff  that's  in  here. 

Stein:    I'm  not  sure  that  there  is  much  in  here. 


288 


Olney:   I  guess  there  isn't.   There's  that  whole  gory  affair  of  Bolger's 

dropping  dead  there,  and  then  the  money.   Incidentally,  the  two  San 
Francisco  detectives  who  were  handling  it  were  later  Kefauver's  men. 

Stein:    I  think  you  may  have  told  that  story  already.   Is  there  anything 
else  we  need  to  say  about  bookmaking? 

Olney:   I  don't  think  so. 
Stein:   How  about  slot  machines? 

Olney:   No,  I  think  that's  covered  completely  in  our  reports.   And  you  asked 
me  something  about  that  before. 

Stein:   I  did  have  one  question.   I  think  that  you  made  recommendations  in 

your  report  of  legislation  that  could  be  passed  to  curb  slot  machines, 
and  legislation  was  passed  in  1949,  and  I  wondered  if  there  was  any 
direct  correlation. 

Olney:   Yes,  indeed.   It  was  our  recommendation  that  did  it. 
Stein:    I  see.   Did  any  of  you  actually  appear  before  the  legislature? 
Olney:   No,  only  our  report. 


The  George  Rochester  Suit 


Stein:    I  think  gang  violence  is  probably  covered  fairly  thoroughly  in 

your  reports.   The  only  thing  that  maybe  isn't  covered  is  the  suit 
by  George  Rochester,  who  sued  you  in  1950.   It  was  in  March  of  1950. 

Olney:   Was  that  when  it  was  filed,  or  is  that  when  it  was  tried? 

Stein:    I  think  that's  when  it  was  filed,  so  it  may  have  not  been  tried 

until  1952.   But  at  any  rate,  he  sued  you  for  libel  in  connection 
with  charges  that  he  had  accepted  checks  from  Jack  Dragna. 

Olney:   That's  right.   This  grew  out  of  a  press  conference  that  I  held. 

Jack  Dragna  was  a  true  Mafia  type  and  he  was  the  big  Mafia  man  in 
Southern  California  at  that  moment.   One  of  the  things  that  they 
operated  was  the  wire  service  for  the  bookmakers  down  there.   He 
had  a  company,  the  name  of  which  has  slipped  my  mind,  but  it  had 
a  bank  account  in  which  the  printed  name  of  the  company  would  be  on 
the  checks  and  by  so-and-so,  an  officer.   That  was  the  company  that 
operated  the  wire  service  and  leased  all  the  lines  and  everything 
else.   That  was  the  operation  that  the  crime  commission  was  quite 
interested  in  and  hoping  to  stop. 


289 


Olney:   The  Los  Angeles  police  made  a  raid  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
bookmakers  or  the  gambling.   I  think  it  had  to  do  with  Joe  Sica  and 
one  of  his  violent  crimes.   Joe  was  a  real  killer.   Anyhow,  they 
made  the  raid,  which  included  the  office  of  this  outfit  that  ran 
the  wire  service,  and  there  they  found  cancelled  checks  for  this 
outfit.  There  was  a  check  signed  by  Jack  Dragna  as  the  president 
or  secretary  or  treasurer  or  something;  he  was  the  man  authorized 
to  sign  checks . 

Included  in  the  cancelled  checks  were  two  or  three  checks  payable 
to  George  Rochester,  which  were  endorsed  on  the  back  by  him  and 
deposited  in  his  account.   I  think  at  that  time  George  Rochester's 
name  was  strange  to  me,  although  he  was  well  known  to  other  people. 
He  had  been  a  state  senator  from  the  south  and  had  practiced  law 
around  Los  Angeles.   He  was  then  made  special  assistant  to  the 
attorney  general  by  Fred  Howser,  and  at  the  time  that  these  checks 
were  found  he  was  holding  that  position.   I  don't  remember  what  his 
duties  were  supposed  to  be.   Do  you  want  me  to  find  out? 

Stein:   Only  if  you  think  it's  important. 

Olney:   My  recollection  is  that  it  had  something  to  do  with  law  enforcement. 

Stein:   Actually,  that's  probably  in  the  newspapers.   That's  fairly  easy  for 
someone  to  check. 

Olney:    Somebody  on  the  staff  brought  my  attention  to  who  George  Rochester 
was.   I  guess  it  was  the  LAPD  [Los  Angeles  Police  Department]  that 
sent  us  photostatic  copies  of  the  checks  and  their  endorsements 
which  they  had  found.   They  knew  who  George  Rochester  was,  that  he 
was  in  the  attorney  general's  office,  and  that  this  wire  service 
was  a  matter  of  interest  to  us.  When  I  got  the  photostats  of  the 
checks,  I  checked  back  with  the  LAPD  to  make  sure  that  they  were 
genuine,  that  there  wasn't  any  mistake  about  them,  and  that  the 
Rochester  that  was  on  those  checks  was  the  same  fellow  who  was  in 
the  attorney  general's  office.   Sometimes  you  get  fooled  with  the 
identity  of  names .   We  found  out  it  was  the  same  person  all  right . 

So  then  I  called  the  newspapermen  and  told  them  that  I  had  a 
story  if  they  wanted  to  come  around  and  get  it  and  I  gave  them  an 
hour  when  they  could  come.   I  think  it  was  the  next  day  sometime. 
Half  a  dozen  or  so  of  them  showed  up  and  I'd  had  duplicates  made 
of  these  photostats.   I  reminded  them  of  the  commission's  interest 
in  the  wire  service  and  who  Jack  Dragna  was,  and  said  that  we  had 
come  into  possession  of  copies  of  these  photostats  of  these  checks 
which  were  of  interest  to  me  and  they  certainly  might  be  of  interest 
to  them.   I  gave  them  the  photostats. 


290 


Olney:   They,  of  course,  at  once  asked  me  what  the  checks  were  for.   I  told 
them  I  hadn't  the  faintest  idea.   I  didn't  know  what  it  was  for. 
Maybe  they  could  find  out  what  it  was  for. 

That  hit  the  front  page,  as  you  might  imagine,  in  big  letters, 
and  the  men  who  took  that  story  were  all  good  reporters.   I  got  to 
know  them  pretty  well.   I've  got  a  lot  of  respect  for  them,  for 
their  accuracy.   They  submit  their  stories  and  then  they're  re- 
edited  or  edited;  and  then  their  rewrite  men  go  to  work  on  some  of 
them;  and  then  there  are  these  fellows  that  write  the  headlines. 

The  headlines  they  put  on  those  things  were  just  outrageous. 
They  were  flat  accusations  of  bribery  by  George  Rochester  for 
acceptance  of  these  checks  from  Jack  Dragna,  the  head  of  the  wire 
service.   I  never  said  anything  about  bribery  to  the  newspaper 
reporters  and  I  don't  believe  there  was  anything  of  that  sort  in 
their  articles.  This  got  in  a  lot  of  papers. 

Rochester  was  outraged  and  said  that  the  checks  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  wire  service  at  all  or  with  his  duties  in  the  attorney 
general's  office,  and  he  said  that  he  was  going  to  bring  a  suit  for 
libel;  that  what  I  had  done  was  absolutely  unjustifiable  and  that 
one  or  the  other  of  us  ought  to  be  forced  out  of  the  profession;  and 
that  he  was  going  to  bring  a  suit.   He  did. 

I  think  someone  in  Los  Angeles  drew  the  complaint  for  him,  but 
they  filed  the  suit  in  Alameda  County  because  that  was  my  residence 
and  I  could  remove  it  there  anyway,  and  served  me.   But  they  also  en 
joined  the  newspapers.   They  enjoined  the  Chronicle,  the  San  Francisco 
Daily  News — is  that  what  they  called  it?   It  was  the  Scripps-Howard 
paper.   And  the  Hearst  paper.   I  don't  think  they  include  the 
Oakland  Tribune  or  the  Los  Angeles  Times;  I'm  not  sure.   I  don't 
think  so. 

The  suit  had  to  be  defended.   I  had  a  terrible  time  figuring  out 
what  to  do.   The  law  provided  that  under  ordinary  circumstances, 
when  working  for  the  state  in  that  capacity  that  I  was  in  and  there 
is  a  suit  for  damages  brought  against  me,  I  would  be  entitled  to  be 
defended  by  the  state;  but  my  defense  would  be  provided  by  the 
attorney  general.   I  didn't  want  to  have  Fred  Howser  defending  me  in 
a  suit  brought  by  one  of  his  own  special  assistants.   I  talked  with 
the  governor  about  it  and  he  said,  "Go  ahead  and  get  private  counsel 
of  your  own  and  we'll  get  you  paid."   So  I  did. 

I  got  Sam  Berry  in  Oakland  to  represent  me  and  he  had  some 

associates  who  were  going  to  represent  me,  too.   But  not  long 

before  the  trial,  Sam  came  down  with  the  shingles,  a  bad  case  of 

shingles.   So  I  had  to  get  another  lawyer.   The  one  that  I  thought 


291 


Olney:   would  do  a  really  good  job  for  me  was  Sam  Wright  in  San  Francisco. 
He  was  with  the  firm  of  Pillsbury,  Madison,  and  Sutro.   He  worked 
for  them;  he  was  not  a  partner.   I'd  known  Sam  for  many  years.   Sam 
was  counsel  to  the  telephone  company,  too.   Or  I  mean  by  that,  he 
did  Pillsbury  and  Madison's  work  for  the  telephone  company.   As  a 
result,  he  knew  all  about  the  bookmakers  and  the  bookmaking  racket, 
and  those  things  used  to  interest  him.   He  was  much  more  interested 
in  that  than  he  was  in  drawing  contracts  and  wills  or  damage  suits, 
so  I  knew  he'd  have  a  good  time  with  it,  and  he  agreed  to  represent 
me. 

Then  Rochester  changed  counsel.  Mel  Belli  came  and  he  represented 
Rochester.  Mel  made  his  usual  flourish  in  the  press  and  said  he  was 
going  to  represent  Rochester  free  of  charge.   He  only  wanted  to  see 
justice  done.   Belli,  you  know,  had  never  forgotten  or  forgiven  us 
for  hanging  his  client  in  the  Gosden  case.   He's  never  forgotten  that. 
So  he  volunteered  to  take  this  on.   But  he  also  made  what  I've  always 
thought  was  a  very  gross  strategic  error  when  he  dismissed  the  news 
papers  and  left  the  suit  against  me  alone.   It's  true  that  I  couldn't 
get  a  free  ride  as  far  as  counsel  was  concerned.  With  the  newspapers 
in  there,  I  might  have  gotten  a  free  ride  for  legal  defense. 

But  when  it  came  to  the  trial,  the  newspaper  reporters  were  the 
very  best  witnesses  I  could  possible  get,  and  their  papers  weren't 
in  the  case.   They  weren't  defendants  in  the  case.   They  were  in  the 
position  of  not  being  parties  to  the  case.   They  reported  exactly 
what  had  happened,  that  I  had  simply  given  them  the  photostats.   And 
they'd  asked  me  what  the  checks  were  for,  and  I  had  told  them  I 
didn't  know.   I  didn't  have  any  idea.   But  these  headlines  that  were 
so  damaging  to  Rochester  had  never  originated  in  anything  that  I'd 
said. 

The  case  was  a  lengthy  one.   It  must  have  lasted,  maybe,  three 
weeks.   It  got  into  all  kinds  of  details,  for  reasons  that  I  really 
don't  remember.   But  even  the  Davidian  matter  got  into  that.   I  had 
to  testify  about  talking  to  Davidian  down  there  in  Bakersfield  and 
things  of  this  kind.   I  don't  remember  how  that  got  in  there.  We 
were  all  over  the  landscape,  but  the  jury  returned  the  verdict  for 
the  defendant.   It  was  a  unanimous  verdict,  and  it  didn't  take  long. 

So  that  ended  it,  excepting  paying  my  lawyers.   I  had  a  chance 
to  go  over  the  statutes  thoroughly  and  realized  that,  in  spite  of 
what  the  governor  said,  the  governor  lacked  any  authority  whatever 
to  spend  state  money  defending  a  private  person  in  a  private  lawsuit. 
You  can't  do  that  with  public  money.   So  I  went  to  Pillsbury, 
Madison,  and  Sutro  and  asked  them  to  send  me  a  bill.   I  said,  "I'm 
not  going  to  permit  you  to  do  this  for  nothing,  so  don't  try  to  tell 


292 


Olney:   me  it's  pro  bono  publico  or  something.   I  want  you  to  give  me  a 

bill."  Which  they  did.  Which  I  paid.  It  was  more  than  a  year's 
salary  that  I  had  to  account  for.  [laughter]  So  they  managed  to 
stick  me  with  a  year's  salary  in  attorney's  fees. 

Stein:   And  you  were  never  reimbursed  for  that?  That  was  simply  out  of  your 
bank  account? 

Olney:   Yes. 

Stein:   Besides  all  the  time  that  you  lost  sitting  at  the  trial. 

Olney:   Yes,  we  spent  a  lot  of  time  on  it.   But  in  working  with  Sam  Wright 
on  the  case  I  had  a  good  time  too. 

Stein:    I  guess  coming  at  the  end  of  the  crime  commission's  work,  it  was  a 
good  chance  to  review  the  whole  picture,  especially  if  you  were 
going  all  over  the  landscape. 

Olney:   It  was. 

Stein:   It  was  your  own  final  report. 

Olney:   Yes,  that's  right.   I  really  hadn't  thought  of  it  that  way,  but 
there's  something  to  that. 


Federal  Intervention 


Stein:    I  gather  that  shortly  after  the  commission  closed  up  shop  you  became 
somewhat  embroiled  with  the  federal  grand  jury.   Is  it  true  that 
they  subpoenaed  the  whole  commission? 

Olney:   Yes. 

Stein:   What  was  the  story  there? 

Olney:   In  the  final  report  of  the  commission  in  1950 — it  was  published 

November  15,  1950 — we  included  a  part  three,  Taxation  of  Organized 
Crime.   It's  some  twenty  pages  in  the  report.   The  gist  of  it  is 
that  these  racketeers  were  making  an  awful  lot  of  money  in  personal 
income,  and  we  cited  cases  like  Sam  Termini  down  in  San  Mateo 
County.  We  had  a  great  deal  of  information  on  their  personal 
expenditures,  so  that  we  could  take  their  personal  expenditures 
and  figure  what  the  income  would  have  to  be  to  cover  that,  and  we 
got  some  pretty  staggering  figures.  We  were  able  to  put  in  the 
report  the  fact  that  the  Internal  Revenue  Service  did  not  have  a 
tax  case  jacketed  against  a  single  racketeer  in  California. 


293 


Olney:   We  got  that  information  out  of  the  Internal  Revenue  itself.   In 

fact,  there  was  great  indignation  by  the  men  in  the  Internal  Revenue 
Service  that  that  had  happened.   They  were  ashamed  of  it  and  tried 
to  help  us  in  every  way  they  could  when  we  were  going  to  write  this 
up. 

The  gist  of  our  report  was  that  the  state  also  was  being  gypped 
on  its  income  tax  because  at  that  time  the  state  had  no  facilities 
for  making  their  own  investigations.   They  simply  relied  on  the 
federal  government.   If  the  federal  government  would  make  a  case, 
then  they'd  follow  and  make  a  case  against  the  same  person.   But 
they  didn't  do  anything  independently. 

We  recommended  that  they  not  do  that.   If  the  federal  government 
wasn't  going  to  do  anything  about  the  racketeers,  we  thought  the 
state  ought  to.   And,  incidentally,  they  did  enact  the  legislation, 
which  we  recommended,  and  set  up  an  agency  to  do  it.   And  they  have 
their  own  agency  now.   That  became  public  in  1950,  the  time  that  the 
Truman  administration  was  coming  under  a  great  deal  of  public 
criticism  because  of  corruption  in  the  Internal  Revenue  Service. 
[J.W.]  Snyder  was  the  secretary  of  the  treasury,  and  the  Congress 
had  been  investigating  charges  of  the  fixing  of  tax  cases  in  various 
parts  of  the  country. 

This  was  a  very  hot  subject  politically  as  well  as  from  an 
ordinary  point  of  view  of  publicity.   There  were  also  some  scandals, 
bad  ones,  in  the  office  of  the  collector  of  internal  revenue  in  San 
Francisco  and  some  in  Southern  California,  as  well,  that  were  going 
on.   And  all  of  that  made  the  top  Treasury  people  very,  very 
sensitive.   It  seems  that  this  report  outraged  John  Snyder,  and  he 
made  a  demand  on  the  Attorney  General  of  the  United  States  that  the 
Justice  Department  do  something  about  it  and  that  they  take  us  on 
in  some  way  or  another. 

The  first  we  knew  about  that  was  when  we  got  word  that  the 
federal  grand  jury  in  Los  Angeles  was  about  to  issue  subpoenas  for 
Admiral  Standley  and  all  the  members  of  the  crime  commission,  as 
well  as  for  me  and  John  Hanson.  When  I  heard  about  that,  the 
various  members  of  the  crime  commission,  of  course,  kept  calling 
me  on  the  telephone,  saying,  "What's  cooking?  Are  we  going  down  to 
the  grand  jury,  and  what  for?"   [laughter] 

So,  of  course,  I  called  Ernie  Tolin,  who  was  the  United  States 
Attorney,  whom  I  knew,  and  asked  him  about  this.   He  said,  "Yes, 
we've  gotten  orders  from  Washington  that  we've  got  to  present  this 
thing  to  the  grand  jury.   Of  course,  I  don't  think  anything  is 
going  to  come  of  it,  but  we  want  to  have  you  tell  the  grand  jury 
whatever  information  or  whatever  evidence  you've  got  that  indicates 
that  there's  any  wrongdoing." 


294 


Olney:    I  told  him  that  that  was  fine,  but  it  was  certainly  not  necessary 
to  subpoena  the  members  of  the  commission.   I  said,  "You  know  how 
a  commission  of  this  kind  works.  Admiral  Standley  and  others  don't 
go  around  digging  out  the  evidence.   It's  done  by  staff.   They  have 
no  information  about  it  excepting  hearsay  from  our  reports.   If  you 
want  to  get  that,  I'll  appear  and  so  will  John  Hanson." 

He  finally  said  it  made  sense  to  him,  but  he'd  have  to  check. 
He  said  they  were  sending  some  man  out  from  Washington  to  handle  it. 
But  he  called  me  back  and  said  they  had  agreed  that  it  was  not 
necessary  for  the  members  of  the  commission  to  appear,  excepting 
Admiral  Standley  as  chairman.   They  would  like  to  have  him  appear 
and  explain  what  the  commission  was.   They  knew  he  didn't  have  any 
personal  information  about  these  matters.   So  the  admiral  and  I  did 
appear  before  the  grand  jury  in  Los  Angeles. 

We  went  in  there  and,  to  my  amazement,  the  foreman  of  the  grand 
jury  then  told  Ernie  Tolin,  the  United  States  Attorney,  that  they 
wanted  to  talk  to  us  in  private  and  they  asked  him  to  leave.   He 
demurred  at  first,  but  they  were  insistent.   So  he  did  leave.  We 
must  have  spent  an  hour  and  a  half  in  there  talking  with  the  grand 
jury  without  any  U.S.  Attorney  present,  and  there  wasn't  any  formal 
record  being  made  either. 

They  were  no  more  responsible  for  the  subpoena  than  Tolin.   They 
were  wondering  what  in  the  hell  we  were  doing  there.  But  they  were 
interested  in  hearing  how  the  crime  commission  worked — they  read 
about  it  in  the  paper — and  what  our  methods  were.   They  were 
particularly  interested  in  this  section  and  wanted  to  know  what  we 
based  it  on.   [They  asked]  if  we  had  any  idea  that  there  was 
criminal  conduct  going  on  in  the  federal  service  down  there.   We 
told  them  no,  that  we  had  no  evidence  of  that  and  no  reason  to 
assert  that  that  was  the  case.   Perhaps  it  was  merely  a  matter  of 
policy.  We  only  knew  it  was  a  fact  that  none  of  those  hoodlums 
were  paying  a  nickel  in  taxes  when  all  the  rest  of  us  were  bleeding 
at  the  pores.  We  thought  then — we  just  didn't  know.   [laughter] 
That  was  all  there  was  to  our  appearance.  We  had  these  general 
discussions  with  them.   They  thanked  us  and  said  we'd  given  them 
an  interesting  morning  and  we  went  on  out  and  came  on  home. 

I  didn't  have  any  occasion  to  discuss  it  with  Ernie  Tolin  at 
that  time  because  I  didn't  know  what  they  were  getting  at  and  I'm 
sure  he  didn't  want  to  talk  to  me  about  it.   He  was  embarrassed  by 
the  whole  business.   But  he'd  gotten  his  orders  that  he  was  to  do 
this. 

The  amusing  thing  about  this:  there  was  a  man  sent  from  Washing 
ton  out  there.   In  1953  I  became  Assistant  Attorney  General  of  the 
United  States  in  charge  of  the  criminal  division.  I  knew  that  if 


295 


Olney:    someone  had  been  sent  out  from  the  Justice  Department  on  the  grand 
jury  inquiry  that  called  Admiral  Standley  and  me,  it  must  have  been 
somebody  from  the  criminal  division  who  went  out  there. 

In  due  course  I  got  the  time  to  check  back  in  the  files  and,  sure 
enough,  I  found  a  file  in  the  Justice  Department  about  this  with 
this  terrific  wail  and  blast  from  John  Snyder  to  the  attorney  general, 
and  then  the  assignment  of  a  lawyer  in  the  criminal  division,  who  was 
still  there,  to  go  out  to  Los  Angeles.   He'd  gone  out  there. 

His  name  was  Rufus  McLean.   I'd  been  there  long  enough  to  get  to 
know  him  quite  well.   We  were  having  some  turnovers  in  the  office. 
I've  forgotten  the  section  that  he  was  in;  I  think  it  was  general 
crimes.  Anyway,  I  had  to  get  a  new  section  chief  and  I  thought 
McLean  was  a  good  man  for  it.   He  was  well  qualified  and  I  thought 
he'd  be  a  good  man  for  it. 

So,  knowing  his  past  history,  I  thought  I  would  have  some  fun 
with  him.   I  sent  for  him  and  I  had  the  file  on  my  desk,  and  he  came 
in  and  sat  down,  and  I  thumbed  through  this  file.   I  said,  "Rufus, 
I  was  looking  at  this  about  your  last  trip  to  California.  Apparently 
you  had  quite  a  time  out  there."  He  got  all  red  and  very  much  con 
cerned.   I  said,  "Did  you  ever  get  those  hoodlums  that  you  subpoenaed 
before  the  grand  jury?"   [laughter] 

He  didn't  know  what  to  say.   I  finally  said  to  him,  "Well,  I've 
got  something  that  I  want  to  tell  you.   I  want  to  make  some  changes 
around  here.   I  want  to  find  out  if  you'd  be  the  chief  of  the 
section,"  which  was  a  promotion.   He  thought  at  first  I  was  kidding, 
but  then  he  realized  that  I  wasn't  kidding.   So  the  man  who  was 
supposed  to  indict  us  became  the  chief  of  one  of  our  sections  later 
on. 

Stein:   Did  anything  happen  in  the  Internal  Revenue  Service  as  a  result  of 
your  testimony  or  the  report? 

Olney:   That's  a  little  hard  to  say.   The  collector  in  San  Francisco  was 
indicted  and  tried.   But  by  1953  the  regime  had  changed.  We 
prosecuted  and  convicted  fourteen  or  fifteen  in  the  Internal  Revenue 
Service  for  taking  bribes  from  racketeers  for  fixing  cases,  including 
the  director  of  the  Internal  Revenue  Service  himself.  We  convicted 
the  two  top  men.   They  served  terms,  and  all  the  rest  of  these  did 
too.   But  we  didn't  mention  specific  cases;  we  weren't  talking  about 
that.   We  talked  about  some  of  these  expenditures  where  there  was 
no  investigation  jacketed.   I  know  there  was  a  burst  of  activity, 
but  just  what  it  resulted  in  later  on,  I  don't  know. 


296 


Stein: 
Olney: 


Did  you  ever  find  out  why  they  sent  Ernie  Tolin  out  of  the  room? 

Yes.   They  weren't  interested  in  trying  to  indict  us  or  anything  of 
the  sort.   They  didn't  know  what  Ernie  had  in  his  mind,  and  they 
wanted  to  find  out  from  us  what  the  score  was,  what  we  thought  this 
was  all  about,  why  we  were  there,  why  they  were  supposed  to  be 
listening  to  us.   And  they  didn't  want  to  have  somebody  there  with 
the  usual  question-and-answer  thing  as  though  they  were  trying  to 
develop  a  case. 

Grand  juries  can  run  their  own  procedures  if  they  want  to.   In 
the  case  of  the  collector  of  the  Internal  Revenue  Service  in  San 
Francisco,  they  returned  that  indictment  almost  over  the  dead  body 
of  the  U.S.  Attorney.   He  was  very  much  against  it.   They  had  a  big 
row  in  the  district  attorney's  office;  one  of  the  deputies  resigned 
because  the  U.S.  Attorney  wouldn't  go  for  the  indictment.   Well, 
that's  the  story  of  our  appearance  before  the  grand  jury. 


Cooperation  with  Other  Crime  Commissions 


Olney:    [referring  to  interview  outline]   One  other  thing:  I  see  you've  got 
the  Kefauver  Commission  mentioned  down  here.   I  don't  recall  exactly 
when  it  was  that  the  Kefauver  Commission  was  created,  but  it  was 
during  the  period  of  our  last  crime  commission  when  Harold  Robinson 
was  our  chief  investigator.   John  Hanson  was  the  investigator  for  the 
first  commission,  and  he  had  known  Robinson  because  they  were  both  FBI 
men. 


Stein: 
Olney : 


Robinson  had  done  his  FBI  work  in  the  East.   He  was  an  accountant 
by  profession,  not  a  lawyer,  and  he  came  to  Santa  Rosa  and  went  into 
private  work  as  an  accountant.   It  was  in  connection  with,  I  guess, 
the  Mendocino  case  that  we  first  used  Harold  Robinson  because  he  was 
conveniently  located  in  Santa  Rosa  and  also  his  accounting  background 
was  very  useful  to  us  on  some  aspects  of  this  thing.  We  used  him  more 
and  more  often  until  we  finally  got  to  a  position  where  he  took  a  full- 
time  job  with  us  as  an  investigator.   And  he  was  very  good.   I  found 
that  when  Harry  Truman  was  chairman  of  that  war  frauds  investigating 
committee  for  the  U.S.  Senate  following  World  War  II,  Harold  Robinson 
had  been  his  chief  investigator. 

So  he  went  back  pretty  far. 

Yes.   And  he'd  done  an  excellent  job.   The  Truman  Committee's  job  was 
a  very  fine  one,  a  good  job.   So  Robbie  was  very  able  and  very  exper 
ienced,  and  we  were  glad  to  have  him.   We  were  nearly  through,  getting 
along  in  our  work  on  the  second  commission,  and  by  that  time  John  had 
left  and  Robbie  was  the  chief  investigator  at  my  request. 


297 


Olney:   One  day  I  got  a  phone  call  from  Senator  Kefauver  and  he  told  me  that 
he  was  contemplating  setting  up  a  Senate  committee  to  investigate 
organized  crime.   He  was  going  to  be  the  chairman  of  it  and  it  had 
been  authorized  and  they  had  their  appropriation  and  were  trying  to 
put  together  a  staff.   He  said  that  he  was  quite  familiar  with  the 
work  that  we  had  done  and  he  praised  our  work  and  said  that  he  was 
trying  to  do  pretty  much  the  same  thing  for  the  country  that  we  were 
doing  in  California. 

He  wanted  to  know  whether  I  would  give  him  permission  to  ask 
Robinson  if  he  would  become  the  chief  investigator  for  the  Senate 
committee.   He  said,  "I  know  that  your  matters  may  be  in  such  a 
state  that  it  would  throw  you  into  a  tailspin  and  make  too  much 
difficulty."   I  said,  "Well,  I  don't  think  it  would.   I  know  what 
you're  planning  to  do  and  it's  important,  probably  more  important 
than  what  we're  doing.  We're  nearly  through,  anyway.   I  think  we 
could  get  along  without  Robbie."   So  he  went  along  and  asked  Robbie, 
and  Robbie  did  become  the  chief  investigator  for  the  Kefauver  Com 
mittee. 

That  meant  that  Robbie  carried  in  his  head  an  awful  lot  about 
organized  crime  in  California,  and  it  also  meant  that  when  the 
committee  came  out  here  and  wanted  to  make  any  inquiries,  they  not 
only  knew  what  Robbie  had  in  his  head,  but  we  made  sure  that  they 
had  access  to  the  files  that  we  had  so  they  could  read  all  our 
stuff. 

Stein:   What  about  the  Chicago  Crime  Commission,  which  was  operating  at  the 
time? 

Olney:   The  Chicago  Crime  Commission  was  an  entirely  different  arrangement. 
That  is  a  private  organization,  not  supported  by  public  funds.   It 
is  supported  by  donations  from  citizens  of  Chicago,  corporations  and 
others  who  are  interested  in  reducing  the  crime  rate.   It's  been 
going  a  long,  long  time.   It's  a  permanent  organization.   I  think  it 
must  have  come  into  being  in  the  1930s.   I'm  sure  it  was  that  far 
back.   Virgil  Peterson  was  the  director,  and  he  must  have  been  the 
director  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  anyway,  maybe  longer. 

They  had  the  same  system  of  filing  of  information  and  making 
reports  as  we  did.   Their  principal  interest,  of  course,  was  the 
Chicago  hoodlums — the  Capone  gang  and  people  like  that.   But  they 
also  had  a  wealth  of  information  about  the  Purple  Gang  in  Detroit 
and  the  rackets  in  Los  Angeles  and  all  over  the  country.   They  had 
far  more  information  about  rackets  and  racketeers  than  the  FBI  has 
ever  had. 


298 


Olney:   During  this  period,  I  went  back  to  Chicago  and  saw  Peterson  several 
times,  and  we  had  a  regular  exchange  of  information.   He  was  con 
stantly  supplying  us  with  information.   If  we'd  get  a  name  of  some 
body  we  thought  was  an  out-of-state  hoodlum  of  some  sort.,  we'd  just 
call  him  on  the  phone  and  ask  him  if  they  had  anything  on  him  and 
we'd  get  back  voluminous  reports  on  him.   Our  last  report,  of  the 
second  commission,  has  got  a  great  deal  of  information  about  Palm 
Springs  and  about  these  out-of-state  racketeers  who  were  moving  in 
there.   A  great  deal  of  that  information  came  from  the  Chicago 
Crime  Commission,  from  Virgil  Peterson,  who  gave  us  the  background 
of  all  these  people.   His  reports  were  full  of  detail,  exactness, 
dates,  when,  where,  and  all  the  rest,  so  they  were  usable  and  you 
could  base  statements  on  them  and  know  that  you  were  on  sound  ground. 

When  the  Kefauver  Committee  finally  got  to  the  point  of  taking 
testimony,  they  began  in  Washington,  B.C.   The  first  witness  to 
testify  in  those  hearings  was  Virgil  Peterson.   And  I  was  the  second 
witness  on  it.   So  we  had  very  good  relations  with  Peterson  and  the 
Chicago  Crime  Commission. 

Stein:   How  long  did  you  testify  before  the  Kefauver  Committee? 
Olney:   One  afternoon  and  most  of  the  next  day,  I  guess. 
Stein:   And  that  was  mostly  on  California? 

Olney:    Yes.   They  wanted  me  to  summarize  some  of  the  same  sorts  of  things 
you've  been  asking  about,  only  more  in  detail.   I  could  do  it  then. 
I  had  the  names  and  dates  and  places  and  things  at  hand. 

Stein:    If  those  were  public  hearings,  there  would  be  a  record  of  that. 

Olney:    Oh,  yes.   I  had  a  full  set  of  Kefauver  reports.   There  must  be  twenty 
volumes.   It  takes  up  about  that  much  space  on  the  book  shelf, 
[gestures  to  indicate  a  length  of  five  feet]  And  it  concludes  with 
an  index,  a  name  index,  so  that  every  name  that's  in  there  you  can 
locate.   I  took  that  to  Washington  with  me  and  they  used  it  when  I 
was  in  the  Department  of  Justice  because,  as  I  said,  there's  more 
information  in  there  about  hoodlums  around  the  country  than  you  can 
get  out  of  the  FBI. 

The  FBI  would  ignore  these  things.  Hoover  would  tell  you  that 
there  wasn't  any  such  thing  as  a  Mafia,  that  that  was  just  a  pipe 
dream  from  the  Bureau  of  Narcotics.  The  reason  these  rackets  got 
as  big  and  powerful  as  they  did  is  because  the  FBI  just  ignored 
them.  They  felt  they  weren't  in  their  field  and  they  didn't  know 
how  to  crack  them. 


299 


An  Assessment  of  the  Crime  Commission's  Work 


Stein: 

Olney : 
Stein: 

Olney: 


Is  there  anything  else  that  we  ought  to  say  about  your  work  with  the 
crime  commission? 


I  don't  think  so. 

You  were  saying  at  lunch  how  successful  you  thought  it  was. 
thought  we  ought  to  get  that  on  tape. 


I  just 


Well,  I  think  in  evaluating  it  you  have  to  start  in  with  what  you 
expect  to  achieve.   In  this  kind  of  activity  there  is  no  possibility 
of  doing  anything  that's  permanent.  A  lawyer  or  an  investigator  or 
anybody  concerned  with  trying  to  achieve  something  in  this  area  can 
never  be  like  an  engineer  who  can  build  a  dam  or  build  a  bridge  and 
then  have  something  he  can  look  at  for  the  next  fifty  years,  if  it 
doesn't  fall  down.   All  that  one  can  hope  to  do  by  decent  law 
enforcement  is  to  get  it  as  decent  and  keep  it  as  decent  for  as  long 
as  you  can,  knowing  full  well  that  people  change,  people  come,  people 
go,  everything  is  different,  the  rackets  themselves  change,  old  ones 
go  out  and  new  ones  come  in.   In  that  sense  there  never  can  be  any 
permanent  achievement  or  accomplishment.   But  if  you  have  done  your 
stuff  and  there  has  been  an  improvement,  a  holding  of  the  line  or  an 
improvement  in  government,  I  think  you  can  feel  it's  been  successful 
for  that  period.   And  that's  all  you  can  expect. 

That's  all  we  ever  did.   If  it  had  not  been  for  the  crime  commis 
sion,  I  think  that  the  gambling  rackets  and  prostitution  and  every 
thing  else  that  goes  along  with  it  and  general  corruption  would  have 
just  spread  like  a  disease  all  through  the  state,  and  it  penetrates 
all  the  avenues  of  government  once  you  have  it  anywhere.   And  I 
think  as  a  result  of  the  crime  commission's  activities  that  was 
stopped  for  the  time  being. 

We  had  Pat  Brown  following  as  an  attorney  general  who  was  an 
honest  man  and  gave  the  office  and  the  state  a  decent  administration. 
What  happens  at  the  top  is  so  vitally  important  to  everybody  else. 
It  sets  a  standard  and  they  want  to  live  up  to  it  and  do.   If  the 
standard  at  the  top  is  bad,  everything  goes  bad. 

So  I  think  the  money  was  well  spent  and  the  effort  was  put  in. 
I  think  we  did  as  well  as  could  have  been  expected.   We  didn't 
expect  what  we  got  into.   But  I  think  it  had  some  accomplishments. 
If  we  hadn't  had  our  commission,  I  don't  think  there  ever  would  have 
been  a  Kefauver  Committee  inquiry.   I  doubt  it.   Kefauver  has  told 
us  there  wouldn't. 


Stein:   That's  interesting. 


300 


Olney:   And  he  told  me  that  long  after  he  was  trying  to  get  any  investigators 
away  from  me.   He  had  me  on  the  witness  stand  when  I  was  assistant 
attorney  general.   There  was  a  to-do  in  the  Tennessee  Valley 
Authority  about  the  Dixon-Yates  contracts.   It  was  some  kind  of 
contest.    The  contest  was  between  public  and  private  power,  who 
was  going  to  develop  what.   The  administration  had  been  on  the  side 
of  the  private  power  people,  and  Kefauver  was  interested  in  public 
power.   There  was  something  that  came  up;  I  can't  remember  what  it 
was.   But  the  Senator  thought  he  could  make  some  headway  by  trying 
to  embarrass  me  and  the  administration  as  to  why  we  hadn't  prosecuted 
somebody  in  connection  with  these  Dixon-Yates  letters.   He  cross- 
examined  me  for  a  day  or  so  about  why  I  hadn't  taken  criminal  action 
in  these  matters.   I  hadn't  because  I  didn't  think  it  deserved  it. 
We  were  always  very  friendly  in  spite  of  scuffles  like  that . 

Stein:   And  that  was  when  he  told  you  that — 

Olney:   Yes,  that  was  when  he  told  us  that  he  never  would  have  had  that  com 
mission  if  we  hadn't  had  ours. 

Stein:   I  think  that  about  wraps  it  up. 
Olney:   Very  good. 


Relations  with  Commission  Members  and  Preparation  of  Reports 
[Interview  14:  December  7,  1976] 

Olney:    I  think  I  ought  to  say  a  word  about  how  the  reports  of  the  Special 
Crime  Study  Commission  on  Organized  Crime  were  put  together  and 
what  our  relations  were  in  preparing  the  reports  with  the  members 
of  the  commission.   When  I  was  first  asked  to  become  counsel  for 
the  commission  by  Governor  Warren,  he  talked  to  me  at  considerable 
length  about  what  my  relations  ought  to  be  with  the  members  of  the 
commission,  emphasizing  the  importance  of  treating  them  properly. 
The  way  we  proceeded  was  simply  following  his  advice  as  to  what  we 
should  do.   The  members  of  both  commissions  were  all  eminent  men. 
They  were  busy  men;  some  were  retired,  but  they  were  busy,  neverthe 
less.   They  lived  in  different  parts  of  the  state.  Most  of  them 
were  not  lawyers.   On  the  first  commission  the  only  lawyer  was 
Gerald  Hagar. 

The  governor  warned  me  that  efforts  would  be  made  by  some  people 
to  try  to  undermine  the  staff  with  the  committee  members  by  people 
on  the  outside,  and  that  the  only  way  of  meeting  that  was  to  be  as 
close  as  possible  to  the  members  of  the  commission  and  to  bring  them 


301 


Olney:    in  on  all  of  the  staff's  activities  so  that  they  didn't  have  any 

feeling  that  the  staff  was  going  off  on  its  own  and  running  its  own 
inquiries  and  investigations  without  even  consulting  them,  and  that 
they  were  just  being  used  to  sign  papers  that  were  prepared  by  the 
staff  over  which  they  had  no  knowledge. 

As  a  result  of  this,  I  made  every  effort  to  go  and  see  members  of 
the  commission  whenever  I  was  in  their  vicinity.   I  made  innumerable 
calls  on  those  in  Southern  California  when  I  was  down  there  and  other 
places.   I  didn't  always  succeed  in  seeing  them,  but  I  always  reported 
in  some  way  so  that  they  knew  that  I  had  been  there.   Then  when  I  did 
see  them,  I  often  brought  along  various  memoranda  that  had  been  pre 
pared,  investigative  reports  and  things  of  that  kind,  that  I  thought 
might  be  of  interest  to  them  and  might  be  revealing  to  them.   They 
would  read  them  and  we  would  discuss  them  from  time  to  time. 

With  our  general  lines  of  investigation,  we  didn't  undertake  any 
of  them  without  discussing  it  with  the  commission  first.   There  would 
be  a  few  things  that  would  crop  up  very  suddenly  that  we  would  inquire 
into  where  there  wasn't  any  opportunity  of  consulting;  but  we  made  a 
decision  at  the  outset  that  we'd  better  begin  with  the  bookmaking 
racket,  and  that  was  based  on  a  general  discussion  at  a  commission 
meeting  with  all  the  members  present  and  a  review  of  what  had  been 
said  by  law  enforcement  officers  in  various  places  as  to  what  the 
more  serious  rackets  were  in  the  state  and  where  the  big  money  was 
for  these  underworld  characters. 

So  we  tried  to  keep  them,  and  did  keep  them,  just  as  current  as 
possible  on  what  was  going  on.   Sometimes  when  something  unexpected 
and  sensational  would  happen,  we  would  make  special  trips  to  see 
them  to  tell  them  what  the  facts  really  were.   They'd  read  about 
things  in  the  newspapers  and  sometimes  the  accounts  were  a  little 
bit  garbled,  but  more  often  than  not  they  were  quite  incomplete  of 
necessity.   So  we  would  go  out  and  see  them  and  give  them  a  complete 
fill-in. 

When  it  came  to  preparing  the  reports,  those,  of  course,  had  to  be 
prepared  by  the  staff  and  they  relied  very  largely  on  the  counsel — 
our  legal  assistants  like  Arthur  Sherry  and  Alan  Lindsay — to  write 
them  up.   But  we  would  prepare  a  draft  and  then  discuss  it  with  the 
commission  members  usually.   More  often  than  not  we'd  be  able  to 
discuss  only  a  part  at  one  time. 

Jerry  Hagar  was  here  in  Oakland  and  available  and  a  lawyer.   The 
other  members  of  the  commission  looked  to  him  to  go  over  our  work 
very  carefully  and  satisfy  himself  that  it  would  stand  up.   They 
wanted  to  be  very  sure  that  anything  they  were  putting  their  names 
on  was  true,  correct,  and  provable.   They  thought  that  he  was  well 


302 


Olney:    qualified  to  do  this,  which  he  surely  was.   He  spent  literally  hours 
with  us  on  our  reports,  not  only  reviewing  the  facts,  but  assisting 
us  in  drafting  parts  of  it  to  make  sure  that  the  statements  were 
precise  and  that  we  weren't  slopping  over  with  loose  generalizations 
and  things  of  this  kind. 

His  contribution  to  the  report  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate. 
He  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  its  organization,  with  the  kind  of 
language  that  was  used,  and  with  the  content,  in  that  he  was  very 
careful  to  screen  out  anything  that  seemed  to  be  doubtful  when  it 
came  to  proof.   Not  every  member  of  the  commission  was  in  a  position 
to  do  that.   But  when  we  would  get  the  thing  in  final  shape  and  it 
had  been  gone  over  and  put  together  in  this  fashion  with  Jerry's 
watchful  eye  on  it,  at  the  meetings  there  would  be  a  discussion  and 
Jerry  would  describe  some  of  the  things  that  were  not  being  included 
and  why  they  weren't  being  included. 

Stein:   What  sort  of  things  would  those  be? 

Olney:   There  were  things  in  connection  with  the  slot  machine  investigation 
and  with  the  bookmakers,  too,  where  we  had  pretty  strong  evidence 
that  would  be  good  enough  to  submit  to  a  court,  I  would  say,  and  let 
somebody  make  up  his  mind  as  to  whether  our  sources  were  truthful  or 
not.   But  in  a  report  you  can't  very  well  do  that.   You  need  to  be 
sure  that  your  source  is  truthful.   The  other  side  doesn't  get  a 
chance  to  cross-examine  him  or  anything  of  that  kind. 

There  were  details  in  there  about  methods  that  they  had  used, 
various  telephone  taps  and  things  of  that  kind  that  the  wire  service 
people  were  putting  on  each  other;  and  we  had  pretty  good,  sound 
information,  but  he  didn't  think  that  the  sources  were  good  enough 
to  be  dignified  with  statements  by  a  commission  such  as  this,  based 
on  those  sources.   So  we'd  take  that  kind  of  thing  out. 

There  was  no  editing,  of  course,  of  our  drafts  from  the  point  of 
view  of  taking  things  out  that  might  displease  someone;  there  weren't 
any  sacred  cows  or  anything  of  that  kind.   I  don't  suggest  that  for 
a  second.   This  was  merely  to  make  them  sharper,  clearer,  and  more 
pointed  and  more  thorough,  more  difficult  to  attack.   So  much  for 
how  these  reports  were  put  together  and  the  work  of  the  members  of 
the  commission  on  it.   Their  part  was,  indeed,  a  lot  more  than  just 
signing  documents  that  had  been  prepared  by  a  staff. 

Stein:    I  have  one  question  about  the  report.   Arthur  Sherry  tells  the  story 
that  with  one  of  the  reports  he  had  to  rewrite  it  himself  because 
there  had  been  an  unfortunate  experience  with  a  newspaperman  or  an 
ex-newspaperman  who  had  been  hired  to  help  write  the  report,  and  the 
report  got  leaked  to  the  Los  Angeles  Times  before  it  was  supposed  to 
be. 


303 


Olney:   That's  completely  gone  out  of  my  mind.   I  just  had  forgotten  that 
entirely.   Do  you  know  who  the  newspaperman  was? 

Stein:    I  could  find  out.   His  interview  ought  to  be  down  here.   Do  you  want 
me  to  go  find  out? 

Olney:   All  right,  because  I  just  don't  remember  that  at  all. 
Stein:   Let  me  go  find  it. 

[Pause  while  Mr.  Olney  reviews  p.  121  of  Arthur  Sherry,  "The 
Alameda  County  District  Attorney's  Office  and  the  California 
Crime  Commission,"  Regional  Oral  History  Office,  The  Bancroft 
Library,  University  of  California,  Berkeley,  1976.] 

Stein:   Well,  you  don't  have  any  recollection  of  that,  then? 

Olney:    I  have  no  recollection  of  it.   It  probably  occurred.   If  Art  said  it 
did  occur  and  he  remembers  it,  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  did.   But 
even  reading  that  account,  I  still  don't  recall  it  at  all.   Part  of 
the  report  that  I  do  recall  the  boys  writing,  with  which  I  had  very 
little  to  do,  was  the  final  report  of  the  second  commission.   Alan 
Lindsay  prepared  most  of  that.   The  reason  was  that  by  the  time  the 
report  was  being  drafted,  I  had  gone  to  Washington  as  assistant 
attorney  general,  so  I  wasn't  here. 

Stein:   That's  right.   That  would  be  in  1953. 

Olney:   Yes.   That  came  out  in  May,  and  I  went  to  Washington  in  January. 


The  Commission  Staff 


Olney:   About  our  staff:  Their  names  are  all  listed  in  the  reports.   They 
were  an  unusual  group,  I  thought,  of  very  able  men.   Arthur  Sherry 
was  just  simply  invaluable.   I'm  sure  that  he  described  how  he  was 
drawn  into  the  work  of  the  commission  by  the  necessity  of  our  getting 
somebody  to  try  the  case  in  Mendocino  County.   Then  he  continued  to 
help  us.  We  worked  together  on  everything  there  was.   The  organiza 
tion  wasn't  big  enough  to  require  much  separation  of  function.  We 
all  did  everything  there  was  to  do. 

With  the  second  commission,  Alan  Lindsay  became  assistant  counsel. 
He  had  a  background  of  experience  in  the  district  attorney's  office 
in  Alameda  County,  but  I  had  not  known  him  until  he  expressed  an 
interest  in  working  on  the  commission  staff.   I  needed  someone  and 


304 


Olney:    took  him  on,  and  it  was  probably  one  of  the  wisest  things  I  ever 

did.   He  was  just  a  superb  assistant  in  every  respect.   He  could  do 
everything  for  the  commission  that  I  could  do. 

At  the  same  time  that  I  was  there  to  counsel  with  that  commission 
I  was  also  a  professor  in  the  [University  of  California]  law  school 
and  was  supposed  to  be  teaching  a  full  load.   One  of  the  things 
about  these  investigative  operations  is  that  things  are  always 
unexpected;  you  can't  plan  them  and  you  have  to  be  available  and 
you  have  to  act,  so  that  sudden  absences  from  the  classroom  were 
fairly  common.   But  I  found  that  Alan  was  quite  capable  of  doubling 
for  me  in  the  classroom  just  as  well,  or  better,  as  well  as  on  the 
commission  work.   He  did  almost  as  much  teaching,  I  think,  that 
year  as  I  did. 

When  the  commission  work  was  over,  these  men  went  various  places. 
Harold  Robinson  had  already  gone  to  the  Kefauver  Committee  and  had 
become  their  chief  investigator.   Tom  Judge,  who,  I  think,  was  on 
the  staff  of  both  commissions,  went  to  the  state  of  Washington  where 
they  had  a  state  crime  commission  somewhat  similar  to  ours.   I  guess 
it  was  a  state  senate  committee  inquiry  that  they  had.   He  went  up 
there.   Van  Brunt  went  back  to  his  home  town  in  Ontario,  California, 
and  he  became  mayor  or  councilman  or  something  down  there.   Virgil 
Wolfe  eventually  joined  me  in  Washington  in  the  criminal  division. 

One  of  the  things  that  I  tried  to  set  up  in  the  criminal  division 
was  a  new  section  to  deal  with  organized  crime.   I  put  Virgil  in 
charge  of  that  and  he  had  a  good  background  and  a  good  fund  of 
information.   He  was  a  former  FBI  man,  but  he  had  just  as  much 
difficulty  in  getting  cooperation  out  of  the  FBI  as  all  the  rest  of 
us  did.   It  wasn't  successful. 

Stein:   Was  that  simply  a  jurisdictional  dispute? 

Olney:   No,  no.   It  was  temperamental.   It  came  directly  from  Hoover.   He 

simply  was  not  willing  to  share  information  or  share  responsibility 
for  investigations  with  anyone.   His  policy  was  to  simply  present 
cases  to  the  lawyers  in  the  Department  of  Justice — that  includes 
the  U.S.  Attorneys  as  well  as  those  in  Washington — for  prosecution 
and  develop  the  cases.   But  he  didn't  think  it  was  any  function  of 
the  lawyers  to  have  anything  to  do  with  investigations,  with  studies, 
with  plans  of  campaign  and  things  of  this  kind. 

Alan  Lindsay  also  came  to  Washington  and  he  became  one  of  my 
assistants  and  was  just  as  valuable  to  me  in  the  Department  of 
Justice  as  he  had  been  on  the  crime  commission.   Then  he  returned 
to  California  and  now  he's  a  superior  court  judge  in  Alameda  County. 


305 


Stein:   Oh,  yes.   I  think  his  name  appears  periodically  in  the  newspaper, 

Olney:   Yes.   Presently  he  has  before  him  that  case  that  involves  the 
Harrises  who  were  embroiled  with  Patty  Hearst. 

Stein:   Yes,  that's  where  I  saw  his  name.   It  sounds  like  several  of  the 
investigators  had  been  associated  with  the  FBI. 

Olney:   Oh,  yes. 

Stein:   How  had  you  known  them? 

Olney:    I  didn't.   And  I  didn't  recruit  them  personally.   John  Hanson 
recruited  some  when  he  was  chief  investigator  and  then  Harold 
Robinson  recruited  others  when  he  was  chief  investigator.   They, 
of  course,  were  all  interviewed  by  me  and  were  subject  to  my 
approval.   But  they  knew  the  investigators  in  the  field  much 
better  than  I  did. 


Fred  Grange  and  the  Mendocino  Trial 


Stein:   You  were  telling  me  earlier  about  Fred  Grange.   This  is  a  story 
that  grew  out  of  the  Mendocino  prosecution? 

Olney:   Yes,  this  involves  a  man  who  turned  out  to  be  the  key  witness.   The 
first  intimation  of  anything  serious  in  Mendocino  County  that  we 
had  was  having  Sheriff  Broaddus  of  the  county  walk  in  and  tell  us 
that  he  had  been  approached  by  a  man  who  had  offered  to  pay  him 
cash  in  return  for  freedom  to  operate  slot  machines  up  there  at  a 
particular  place  on  the  Redwood  Highway.   I've  forgotten  the  name 
of  it.  He  wanted  to  know  what  to  do.   He  had  gone  first  to  Jack 
Gleason,  the  sheriff  in  Alameda  County,  and  Jack  brought  him  over 
to  see  us. 

We  agreed  the  thing  to  do  was  to  go  ahead  with  the  deal  and  we 
would  watch  it  and  cover  it  and  see  who  it  was  and  what  happened. 
Sheriff  Broaddus  did  that  and  he  made  arrangements  to  meet  this  man 
and  to  have  the  money  paid.  We  took  moving  pictures  of  him  meeting 
the  sheriff  and  handing  him  the  envelope;  the  envelope  contained 
money . 

Of  course,  the  man  was  arrested.   That  man  was  named  Fred  Grange. 
I  had  run  into  Fred  Grange  before.   This  was  in  connection  with  Tony 
Cornero's  gambling  ship,  the  Rex,  before  the  war.   Grange  was  the 
bookkeeper  and  financial  manager  of  the  Rex. 


306 


Olney:    It  seems  that  Grange  had  gone  to  the  University  of  California  at 

Davis  and  graduated  in  1925.   He  was  raising  wine  grapes  up  in  Napa 
County  on  a  ranch  called  Staggs  Leap  Manor,  which  belonged  to  his 
mother.   His  mother  was  well  acquainted  with  Mrs.  Stralla,  who  was 
Tony  Cornero's  mother,  also  engaged  in  raising  grapes  up  in  the  Napa 
Valley. 

When  Tony  got  involved  in  these  gambling  ship  operations,  he  had 
great  trouble  because  he  was  being  stolen  blind  by  the  people  who 
were  working  for  him.   He  didn't  have  any  proper  set  of  books  to 
keep  track  of  things.  Mrs.  Grange  heard  about  this  from  Mrs.  Stralla 
and  suggested  to  Mrs.  Stralla  that  Tony  ought  to  employ  Fred.   So  he 
did.   Fred  went  down  there  and  he  made  the  place  honest,  if  you  can 
imagine  an  honest  gambling  place.   The  result  was  that  he  became 
very  good  friends  with  Tony  Cornero,  and  we  encountered  him  on  our 
raids  on  the  gambling  ship  in  connection  with  the  money  and  things 
of  this  kind. 

When  Sheriff  Broaddus  had  this  man  arrested  who  was  passing 
money,  it  turned  out  to  be  Fred  Grange.   The  resort  where  they  were 
talking  about  putting  these  machines  was  in  the  name  of  Tony's 
brother,  Stralla,  who  was  the  mayor  of  St.  Helena  at  the  time, 
Louie  Stralla.   Then  we  were  very  sure  that  what  we  were  hitting 
was  another  Cornero  operation,  this  time  on  slot  machines.   Fred 
Grange  was  really  quite  a  trophy  to  pick  up  actually  passing  money 
to  the  sheriff. 

We  went  ahead  with  the  preparation  of  the  case,  expecting  Fred 
Grange  to  be  the  major  defendant.   But  sometime  after  the  indictment 
was  returned,  I  got  a  long  distance  telephone  call  from  Los  Angeles. 
It  was  a  Los  Angeles  lawyer  named  Sammy  Rummel,  who  was  a  smart, 
able  lawyer,  but  had  devoted  his  life  and  efforts  to  defending 
people  in  the  underworld.   He  was  a  real  hoodlum  mouthpiece,  and 
known  as  that.   He  called  me  on  the  phone  and  told  me  that  he  had 
something  very  important  that  he  wanted  to  talk  with  me  about  and 
that  he  would  come  up  to  San  Francisco  to  see  me.   He  gave  me  no 
clue  at  all  as  to  what  it  was  about  excepting  that  it  was  important 
and  that  he  wanted  to  see  me  privately. 

I  said,  "Well,  I'm  here  in  the  office  and  you  can  come  in  any 
time  you  want."   "No,"  he  said,  "I  can't  come  to  your  office.   I've 
got  to  see  you  somewhere  else.   I'll  get  a  hotel  room  and  phone  you 
and  you  come  over  and  see  me  in  the  hotel  room."  I  was  very  reluc 
tant  to  do  this,  not  knowing  what  this  was  about  or  what  I  would  be 
getting  into.   But  knowing  Rummel,  I  knew  that  it  must  be  something 
important  because  he  wouldn't  be  fooling  around  with  me  or  playing 
games .   So  I  agreed  to  do  it  and  arranged  with  John  Hanson  and 
others  so  that  when  I  went  over  to  the  hotel,  they'd  cover  me. 


307 


Olney:   In  due  course,  a  day  or  so  later,  I  got  a  phone  call  from  Rummel 

and  he  said  he  was  in  San  Francisco  and  he  was  in  a  hotel  up  on  Post 
Street  someplace  and  would  I  come  and  see  him.   So  I  went  up  to  see 
him.   He  had  come  up  from  Los  Angeles  just  for  that  purpose. 

He  said,  "I  came  to  see  you  about  this  Mendocino  County  case.   I 
know  you  boys  think  you've  got  a  pretty  clear  idea  what  happened, 
what  this  was  all  about.   But  I'll  tell  you  right  now,  you're  wrong. 
It's  a  completely  different  picture.   Fred  Grange  isn't  the  important 
figure  in  this  that  you  people  think  he  is,  and  I  want  to  tell  you 
that  Fred  is  willing  to  tell  you  the  full  story,  everything  he  knows 
about  it." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "are  you  representing  Grange?"  He  said,  "No,  I'm 
not.  But  I'll  tell  you  who  I'm  representing,  and  this  will  explain 
why  I  can't  come  to  your  office.   This  has  got  to  be  secret.   It 
must  be  kept  secret.   I  was  sent  up  here  by  Tony  Cornero."   I  knew 
that  he'd  represented  Cornero  from  time  to  time. 

He  said,  "Tony  Cornero  has  told  Fred  Grange  he  must  go  to  you 
and  tell  you  the  whole  story,  and  he'll  do  it.  He'll  plead  guilty 
to  his  attempt  to  fix  the  sheriff.   The  only  thing  that  he  wants  in 
return  for  the  story  is  that  he  not  go  to  prison.  He's  got  that 
Staggs  Leap  Manor  and  his  mother  and  his  wife  and  three  children, 
and  there's  nobody  to  run  the  place.   If  he  can't  take  care  of  it, 
it  isn't  going  to  be  taken  care  of  and  they'll  lose  it  and  they'll 
all  be  in  a  terrible  mess." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "that's  a  big  order  and,  of  course,  I  don't  know 
what  his  story  is." 

"Well,"  he  said,  "you'll  find  it's  an  interesting  one." 

I  said,  "I'm  not  going  to  make  any  agreement  with  you  or  with 
Fred  without  knowing  what  the  story  is,  of  course,  and  we  are  not 
going  to  buy  any  pig  in  a  poke.  We  will  agree  that  if  Fred  wants 
to  talk  to  us  and  tell  us  truthfully  and  fully  everything  that  has 
happened,  we  will  not  use  anything  that  he  said  against  him  at  the 
trial  or  in  any  other  way.   But  that's  the  best  we  could  do.   And 
as  far  as  making  any  recommendations  for  his  going  to  jail  or  not, 
of  course,  that's  not  up  to  us;  it's  up  to  the  judge  and  what  he's 
going  to  do.   The  most  we  could  do  would  be  to  make  a  recommendation, 
and  if  Fred  performs  something  that  we  thought  was  a  service  we 
might  make  a  recommendation,  but  not  otherwise." 

He  said,  "I  think  that  he'll  talk  to  you  on  that  basis.   I'll 
arrange  to  have  him  come  in." 


308 


Olney:   I  said,  "What's  Tony  Coriiero  got  to  do  with  this?  What  did  he  send 
you  up  here  for?" 

"Well,"  he  said,  "Cornero's  known  Grange  all  these  years — you 
know  he  has — and  when  Grange  got  into  trouble  the  first  thing  he 
did  was  to  go  south  to  see  Tony.   As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  had  a 
meeting  out  at  Tony's  house.   Caddel  and  Lentz  and  others  from  the 
Howser  office  were  there,  as  well  as  Grange,  and  they  were  all 
commiserating  with  Grange  that  he'd  gotten  knocked  off  in  this 
fashion  and  were  feeling  very  sorry  for  him.   But  when  they  left 
and  Tony  was  there  with  Grange  alone,  Tony  said  to  him,  'Fred,  these 
fellows  aren't  going  to  do  anything  for  you.   They  won't  give  you  a 
nickel.   Not  one  of  them  offered  even  to  assist  you  in  your  defense. 
The  thing  you  need  to  do  is  go  up  and  tell  Warren  Olney  what  hap 
pened,  and  don't  worry  about  these  fellows.   Take  care  of  yourself.  " 

Well,  this  is  what  the  man  said,  so  I  waited  to  see  what  would 
happen  next.   In  due  course,  Fred  did  come  up  from  the  south  and  we 
made  arrangements  to  talk  to  him.   We  interviewed  him  for  a  day  or 
two  with  a  court  reporter  while  he  told  us  all  about  his  involvement 
in  this,  how  he  got  into  it  and  the  part  that  these  others  played. 
It  was  evident  that,  if  his  story  was  true,  Buck  Caddel  and  Mulligan 
and  all  these  others  were  deeply  involved.   This  was  a  part  of  a 
scheme  to  set  up  a  protection  system  all  over  the  state.   It  was 
quite  evident  that  Tony  Cornero  and  Louie  Stralla  had  nothing  to  do 
with  this. 

We  took  this  story  from  Fred  Grange  in  great  detail,  thinking 
that  we  could  find  some  corroboration  for  his  story.   But  we  checked 
everything  out;  everything  that  we  checked  was  consistent  with  his 
story.   He  spoke  of  staying  in  various  hotels,  and  various  phone 
calls,  and  things  of  this  kind,  and  all  of  that  checked  out.  We 
found  the  registrations,  we  got  the  telephone  records  and  they  were 
consistent  with  his  story,  everything  of  that  kind. 

But  that  isn't  corroboration.   To  get  corroboration,  you  need  to 
have  something  that  also  shows  not  mere  involvement  in  the  actions, 
but  shows  a  consciousness  of  wrongdoing  on  some  person's  part.   And 
that  was  lacking.  We  couldn't  find  any  corroborating  evidence.   I 
had  told  Rummel  that  if  we  couldn't  find  any  corroboration,  we 
weren't  going  to  use  Fred  as  a  witness.   It  would  have  to  be  cor 
roborated.   And  after  weeks  of  thorough  investigation  and  the  date 
of  the  trial  getting  close,  we  had  no  corroboration. 

Finally  I  realized  that  I  must  tell  Rummel  and  Fred  that  he  was 
just  going  to  have  to  stand  trial  and  tell  any  story  on  the  witness 
stand  he  wanted  to  tell.  We  wouldn't  use  what  he'd  told  us  against 
him,  but  we  couldn't  use  him  as  a  witness  without  corroboration. 


309 


Olney:   I  had  a  difficult  time  in  getting  a  hold  of  Rummel.   He  was  a  man  who 
had  innumerable  irons  in  the  fire,  and  I  finally  tracked  him  down  in 
Las  Vegas.   So  I  flew  all  the  way  to  Las  Vegas  in  a  thunderstorm  one 
night  to  meet  him  at  the  airport  in  Las  Vegas  and  tell  him  that  we 
couldn't  find  any  corroboration  and  that  we  weren't  going  to  use  Fred 
as  a  witness.   He  was  going  to  have  to  be  a  defendant.   He  was  very 
surprised  that  we  couldn't  get  corroboration,  and  at  first  he  thought 
I  was  pulling  a  fast  one  on  him.   But  I  persuaded  him  that  we  couldn't. 
That  meant  that  Fred  would  have  to  get  a  lawyer  and  it  was  going  to 
be  pretty  complicated. 

Admiral  Standley,  who  was  the  commission  chairman,  was  also  a 
director  of  Pan  American  Airways,  and  he  had  taken  a  long  inspection 
trip  of  Pan  American's  operations  in  the  Pacific  and  in  Hong  Kong  and 
places  like  that.   He  finally  came  back.   He  was  due  back  about  this 
time  and  we  were  going  to  have  a  commission  meeting.   I  met  him  at 
the  plane  and  drove  him  up  to  Ukiah;  his  old  home  was  in  Ukiah.   He 
came  from  there.   He'd  been  gone  for  months.   I  hadn't  seen  him  for 
a  long  time  and  he  asked  me  how  things  were  going  and  what  the  state 
was  of  this  case  in  Mendocino  County.   I  gave  him  a  fill-in. 

On  the  way  up,  he  mentioned  to  me  the  experience  that  he  had  had 
with  Buck  Caddel  at  the  last  commission  meeting.   That  took  place 
the  very  day  that  Fred  Grange  was  arrested  passing  this  money.   We 
knew  that  the  arrest  was  going  to  take  place  on  that  day.   So  we 
had  deliberately  called  a  commission  meeting  in  Los  Angeles  and  we 
asked  Lentz  and  Caddel  and  others  to  appear  at  that  meeting  to 
discuss  this  slot  machine  situation.   They  were  there  in  the  meeting 
at  the  very  time  that  the  arrest  happened.   We  were  asking  them 
questions  as  to  whether  they  knew  Grange  and  whether  they  knew  a  lot 
of  other  people. 

The  admiral  told  me  that  after  that  meeting  they  went  down  to  the 
men's  room  and  Caddel  was  down  there  and  so  was  the  admiral.   The 
admiral  said  to  Caddel,  "Mr.  Caddel,  I'm  not  very  experienced  with 
the  vocabulary  that  I've  been  hearing  today.   What  in  the  world  is 
a  bag  man?"  Caddel  told  him  that  the  bag  man  was  the  fellow  who 
went  around  and  collected  the  protection  money  for  officials.   He 
said,  "Like  Mulligan.   Mulligan's  the  bag  man  for  this  operation." 

When  the  admiral  told  me  that  I  realized  we  had  the  corroboration 
we'd  been  looking  for  from  none  other  than  the  admiral.   It  was 
Caddel  himself  telling  Admiral  Standley  that  Mulligan  was  the  bag 
man  for  this  operation.   We  couldn't  do  any  better.   So  I  said, 
"Well,  Admiral,  would  you  tell  me  again  just  what  was  said."  And 
he  went  over  it  carefully.   I  said,  "Now,  this  is  probably  more 
important  than  you  might  think.   Are  you  sure  about  it?"  He  said, 
"I'm  positive  about  it."  And  I  said,  "It's  so  important  that  you 
probably  ought  to  be  a  witness  to  testify  to  it."  "Well,"  he  said, 
"I'll  testify  to  it.   It  happened." 


310 


Olney:   At  the  last  minute  we  switched  signals  and  decided  that  we  did  have 
corroboration  and  we  could  use  Fred  Grange  with  the  admiral  to  cor 
roborate  him,  and  we  did.   It  changed  the  whole  complexion  of  the 
trial  so  that  Grange,  instead  of  being  the  main  defendant,  was  a 
principal  witness. 

During  this  period  we  got  well  acquainted  with  Fred  Grange  and  I 
talked  to  him  many  times  about  Cornero.   He  told  me  this  experience 
that  he'd  had  with  Cornero  during  World  War  II.   The  gambling  ships, 
of  course,  had  been  shut  down  just  as  the  war  got  going,  and  Fred 
lost  track  of  Cornero.   He  went  back  to  the  Napa  Valley.   But  they 
weren't  doing  anything  very  much  up  there,  weren't  making  any  money. 

Fred  got  the  idea  that  because  you  couldn't  import  champagne  from 
France  during  the  war — the  Germans  were  occupying  the  area — that  if 
you  could  import  French  champagne  from  Cuba,  you  could  make  a  killing. 
He  had  some  contacts  and  arrangements  that  convinced  him  that  he 
could  go  to  Cuba  and  be  able  to  buy  French  champagne  and  ship  it  in. 
So  he  started  off  to  make  his  trip  and  he  got  as  far  as  Miami, 
Florida. 

He  was  by  himself  and  he  went  out  to  a  restaurant  somewhere  to 
eat  and  who  did  he  run  into  but  Tony  Cornero.   Tony  was  glad  to  see 
him  and  patted  him  on  the  back  and  said,  "Let's  go  out  and  have  a 
time,"  and  they  went  out  to  some  Florida  gambling  place  out  there. 
Tony  moved  into  his  hotel  and  took  the  next  room  and  they  proceeded 
to  spend  the  next  few  days  going  all  over  Florida,  looking  at  the 
Florida  gambling  operations  [laughter],  until  Fred  got  just  completely 
fed  up  with  it  and  decided  he  wasn't  making  any  progress  on  his  deal, 
and  he  told  Tony  that  he  was  going  to  leave  the  next  day  for  Havana. 
Tony  said,  "Well,  Fred,  I'm  going  to  go  with  you."  And  he  did. 

The  two  of  them  went  to  Havana  together.   They  went  to  a  hotel  in 
Havana  and  got  rooms  together  and  then  proceeded  to  look  the  town 
over.   During  the  daytime  Fred  was  trying  to  make  his  negotiations 
for  the  champagne  and  at  night  they'd  go  out  and  look  at  the  gambling 
houses  in  Havana. 

One  night  they  went  to  a  very,  very  plush  gambling  house.   The 
gentlemen  were  all  in  evening  clothes  and  the  ladies  in  long  dresses 
and  it  was  a  very  plush  joint.   Tony  was  in  there  feeling  no  pain, 
and  they  visited  the  bars  all  the  way  along  the  line,  and  he  got  very 
vociferous  and  critical  of  the  operation.   He  remarked  in  loud  tones 
that  they  didn't  know  how  to  run  a  place  and  that  this  might  be 
fancy  but  it  was  a  jerk  joint  and  you  couldn't  make  any  money  in 
that  kind  of  an  operation,  and  derogatory  remarks  of  that  sort,  with 
the  result  that  a  man  came  over,  dressed  in  his  evening  clothes,  and 
said,  "Mr.  Cornero,  I've  been  listening  with  interest  to  your  comments 


311 


Olney:   on  the  inadequacies  of  our  operation.   And  it  does  occur  to  me  that 
maybe  you  have  a  point.   I  own  this  place.   Perhaps  you  might  like 
to  buy  it."  After  some  more  boasting  around,  Tony  agreed  to  buy 
the  damn  thing  and  they  entered  an  agreement  right  then  and  there 
to  purchase  it. 

The  next  morning  when  Fred  and  Tony  woke  up  and  they  realized 
what  they'd  done,  he  said,  "My  god,  I've  got  to  take  possession  of 
that  place  in  five  days!   Fred,  you've  got  to  help  me!   I  want  you 
there  as  my  manager.   You've  got  to  help  me  on  this  thing."  Fred 
said,  "How  can  I  help  you?   I  can't  speak  Spanish."  And  Tony  said, 
"Well,  you've  got  to.   You've  got  to  learn.   You've  got  to  do  some 
thing." 

They  went  down  to  breakfast  and  they  were  talking  about  where 
Fred  could  learn  Spanish.   Not  knowing  where  else  to  ask,  they  asked 
their  waitress  where  he  could  learn  to  speak  Spanish.   She  spoke 
English  well  and  she  said,  "Well,  if  you  really  want  lessons,  I  can 
give  you  Spanish  lessons."   So  they  signed  up.   She  undertook  to 
teach  Fred  Spanish.   In  five  days  she  did  teach  him  to  count,  anyway. 

They  took  possession  of  this  place  and  then  Tony  proceeded  to  run 
it  in  his  fashion.   His  philosophy  was  that  you  made  far  more  money 
out  of  a  mass  gambling  operation  than  anything  else.   The  two-  or 
three-dollar  bet  was  what  he  liked,  not  these  big  heavy  bets.   So 
they  opened  it  up  and  had  huge  crowds  of  people  coming  in  and  out 
and  made  quite  a  success  out  of  it. 

Meanwhile,  Fred  was  trying  to  learn  more  and  more  Spanish.   He 
was  taking  lessons  from  this  waitress-teacher  all  this  time.   He 
got  pretty  proficient  with  his  Spanish. 

They  operated  that  thing  for  about  two  years  and  put  it  on  a  very 
well-paying  basis.   Then  one  night,  just  out  of  the  dark,  you  might 
say,  a  gentleman  appeared.   It  was  the  same  man  who'd  sold  them  the 
place  in  the  first  place.   He  was  [Cuban  President  Fulgencio] 
Batista's  chief  of  police  in  Havana.   He  said,  "Mr.  Cornero,  Mr. 
Grange,  I've  got  a  couple  of  tickets  here  for  you.  You're  due  to 
take  the  next  plane  for  Miami.  You'll  be  leaving  in  an  hour  and  a 
half."   [laughter]   And  that's  all  they  had,  an  hour  and  a  half. 
Then  the  police  chief  put  them  on  the  plane  and  shot  them  back  to 
Florida  without  time  to  get  anything.   They'd  made  enough  money  so 
that  they  weren't  out  of  pocket.   But  they  had  turned  the  thing 
into  a  real  profitable  operation,  so  he  just  took  it  back. 

When  Fred  got  to  Florida,  in  due  course  he  got  a  letter  from 
his  waitress-Spanish  teacher  reminding  him  that  he  had  promised  her 
that  if  he  ever  went  back  to  the  United  States,  he  would  do  every 
thing  he  could  so  that  she  could  come  to  the  United  States.   She 


312 


Olney:   wanted  to  come  to  the  United  States.   Fred  says  this  was  a  strictly 
platonic  relationship  that  they  had,  and  he  did  make  inquiry  because 
he  had  given  her  these  assurances.   But  he  couldn't  find  any  way  in 
which  a  Cuban  woman  could  come  into  the  United  States  during  the 
war,  unless  she  got  married  to  an  American  citizen.   So  he  wrote 
her  this  and  he  got  a  letter  back. 

She  was  in  great  distress  because  she'd  really  been  looking  for 
ward  to  coming  to  the  United  States.   This  upset  him  considerably, 
so  he  wrote  and  said,  "Well,  if  you  really  want  to  come  and  the  only 
way  you  can  do  it  is  to  get  married,  maybe  you  can  get  married  by 
proxy  and  come  as  the  wife  of  an  American  citizen."  She  agreed  she 
would  do  that.   So  Fred  was  the  proxy,  and  they  got  married  by  a 
telephone  or  cable  or  something . 

She  came  to  the  United  States  and  she  had  no  place  to  go,  and  he 
had  had  to  claim  responsibility  for  her.  He  sent  for  her  and  sent 
her  up  to  his  mother's  ranch,  Staggs  Leap  Manor.   She  was  there  as 
his  wife,  and  she  hadn't  been  there  more  than  about  ten  days  or  two 
weeks  and  she  came  downstairs  one  day  in  tears.   She  didn't  like  the 
United  States.   It  was  too  cold  and  the  people  just  run  around  and 
are  so  busy  and  no  time  for  anything  and  she  didn't  like  it.   She 
wanted  to  go  home.   So  he  shipped  her  back  to  Cuba. 

About  two  weeks  after  that  he  got  a  letter  from  her  in  which  she 
changed  her  mind  entirely  and  said  Cuba  was  just  awful.   It's  so 
sleepy  and  dull  and  nothing  ever  happens,  and  she  wanted  to  come 
back  to  the  United  States.   So  he  brought  her  back  to  the  United 
States.   Then  he  decided,  "We're  married,  so  why  don't  we  be 
married."   So  they  went  to  living  together  up  at  Staggs  Leap  Manor 
and,  at  the  time  that  he  was  telling  me  this  story,  she  had  three 
children. 

Stein:    So  that  was  the  wife,  then,  on  whose  behalf  Rummel  was  appealing. 

Olney:   Yes,  that  was  his  wife.   Fred  testified  and  after  the  case  was 

over,  when  it  came  to  his  being  sentenced,  we  gave  the  full  story 
to  the  judge,  and  he  put  him  on  probation  for  something  like  four 
years,  and  Fred  was  able  to  keep  the  ranch  going  and  keep  it 
together.   But  he  had  an  awfully  hard  time  because  everybody  took 
advantage  of  him.   They  knew  he  was  on  probation  and  he  just  got 
cheated  right  and  left  all  the  time.   There's  no  doubt  that  happened, 
and  it  was  a  very  rough  experience,  indeed. 

After  about  two  or  three  years  of  that,  we  went  with  him  before 
the  judge  and  gave  him,  again,  the  full  story  of  what  happened  to 
Fred,  and  the  judge  terminated  the  probation  to  the  period  he'd 


313 


Olney:   already  served.   But  later  he  died.   I  don't  remember  whether  it 
was  tuberculosis  or  cancer,  one  or  the  other.   And  I  don't  know 
what's  happened  to  the  Cuban. 

Stein:   For  all  we  know,  she  might  still  be  up  there  in  Napa  Valley. 


A  Postscript  on  Two  Underworld  Figures 

Olney:   The  other  part  of  it  was  that  shortly  after  this,  Rummel — he  had  a 
house  up  in  that  canyon  back  of  Hollywood;  it's  the  main  road  that 
goes  through  the  canyon  through  the  hills  back  of  Hollywood — he  had 
a  very  nice  house  up  in  there.   He  was  representing  some  captains  in 
the  Los  Angeles  Police  Department  that  the  grand  jury  was  investi 
gating,  as  well  as  his  usual  run  of  cases:   gamblers  and  whatnot. 
He  also  was  a  lawyer  for  some  of  these  Las  Vegas  gambling  outfits. 
Late  one  night,  after  a  session  with  the  grand  jury  when  his  men 
had  been  down  there,  he  came  home  to  his  house  and  was  going  up 
the  steps  and  there  was  somebody  in  the  bushes  who  blasted  him  with 
a  sawed-off  shotgun,  threw  the  gun  down,  and  vanished.   It  was  a 
paid  assassination.   The  gun  was  untraceable.   No  one  was  ever 
arrested  for  it,  and  really  no  one  was  suspected  because  Rummel  had 
so  many  underworld  contacts.   There  were  so  many  people  who  had 
motives  that  you  couldn't  settle  on  anything. 

Then,  not  long  after  that,  Tony  Cornero,  who  was  still  in 
Beverly  Hills,  had  his  doorbell  ring  and  there  was  a  man  with  a 
box  of  flowers  to  present  to  him,  only  the  box  had  a  gun  in  it  and 
he  shot  him  right  through  the  belly.   It  didn't  kill  him,  but  they 
had  to  take  most  of  his  ins ides  out  and  he  never  was  the  same 
again.   Life  was  tough  for  him. 

After  that  he  got  the  idea  of  building  a  night  club  up  in  Las 
Vegas,  and  he  had  one  built  which  is  called  the  Stardust,  I  think. 
Once  again,  it  was  on  other  people's  money.  Tony  never  put  up 
money  of  his  own.   It  was  always  other  people  he  got  to  put  up  the 
money.   But  the  Stardust  was  finally  constructed  and  it  was  getting 
ready  to  open,  and  they  had  retained  Morton  Downey,  the  singer,  for 
the  opening  night.   It  was  to  be  a  big  event.   A  night  or  two 
before  it  was  to  open  up,  Tony  was  in  Las  Vegas  and  he  went  across 
the  street  to  the  Dunes  Club,  I  think  it  was,  early  in  the  morning 
and  got  into  a  crap  game.   He  threw  the  dice  out  on  the  table  and 
he  toppled  over  on  the  table  dead.  Died  of  a  heart  attack  right 
there  at  the  gaming  table. 

Stein:   That's  an  appropriate  end  for  him. 


314 


Olney:   Yes.   Then  they  had  a  funeral.   They  removed  his  body  to  Beverly 
Hills  and  had  a  funeral  at  his  home  which  was  really  quite  an 
affair.   It  was  attended  by  gamblers  and  hoodlums  from  all  over 
the  United  States.   Of  course,  it  was  well  attended  by  police  as 
well.   They  were  taking  down  everybody's  license  number  and  identi 
fying  the  people  who  were  there  and  all  that  kind  of  thing.   Morton 
Downey  took  part  in  the  funeral.   This  was  reported  in  the  paper. 
This  is  where  I  get  my  information  on  this.   At  the  funeral  he  was 
to  sing  Tony  Cornero's  favorite  hymn;  they  described  it  as  a  hymn. 
But  the  song  that  he  sang  was  none  other  than  "The  Wabash  Cannon- 
ball."   [laughter]   So  he  really  came  to  an  appropriate  end, 
considering  the  kind  of  life  he'd  led. 


315 


XIII   THE  DEPARTMENT  OF  JUSTICE 
[Interview  9:  March  25,  1974] 

Teaching  at  Boalt  Hall 


Stein:   One  of  the  things  that  I  was  curious  about  was  that  you  mentioned 
that  you  were  teaching  at  the  University  of  California's  Boalt 
Hall  [law  school]  and  at  the  School  of  Criminology  before  you  got 
the  call  to  come  to  Washington,  and  I  wondered  what  you  were 
teaching . 

Olney:    Criminal  law  in  both  places.   There  was  a  course  in  the  general 
principles  and  background  of  criminal  law  which  I  gave  for  the 
School  of  Criminology.   O.W.  Wilson  was  the  dean  at  the  time.   And 
then  I  taught  the  initial  course  in  the  law  school — when  I  say 
"initial,"  I  mean  it  was  always  a  first-year  course  in  criminal 
law. 

Stein:   An  introductory  course.   That  sounds  something  like  the  courses 
that  Arthur  Sherry  teaches  now  in  both  places. 

Olney:   That's  right.   I  also  had  another  course.  This  was  a  seminar  that 

I  gave  on  organized  crime.   I  had  to  limit  that  to  keep  it  a  seminar 
to  something  like,  I  think  it  was,  fifteen  students.   I  had  those 
three  courses. 

Stein:   I  guess  by  that  time  you  were  quite  an  expert  on  organized  crime. 

Olney:    I  was  familiar  with  some  parts  of  it  to  say  the  least.   Although 

I  was  a  full  professor  and  this  was  supposed  to  be  a  full  teaching 
load,  I  was  also  still  counsel  for  the  second  crime  commission.   I 
had  Alan  Lindsay  helping  me  with  the  crime  commission.   Alan,  I 
found,  could  also  double  for  me  in  my  courses. 


316 


Olney:    If  it  had  not  been  for  Alan,  I  don't  think  I  could  have  kept  things 
together,  because  the  demands  of  the  crime  commission  were  very 
sudden,  and  I  couldn't  refuse  them;  I  had  to  take  care  of  them  when 
the  necessity  arose.   By  having  Alan  working  on  both  things  with 
me,  it  made  it  possible  to  keep  the  courses  going  and  still  be 
counsel.   I  really  think  he  was  a  better  teacher  than  I,  and  I  think 
the  students  did  all  right. 

Stein:   Did  you  enjoy  teaching? 

Olney:   Well,  I  enjoyed  the  seminar  very  much,  but  I  was  very  much  disap 
pointed  with  the  law  school,  with  teaching  the  course  there,  because 
the  class  was  so  large — it  was  something  over  one  hundred  students — 
and  this  meant  that  I  could  not  use  the  case  book  method  of  instruc 
tion,  where  you  assign  cases  to  be  studied  and  then  have  a  dialogue 
about  them  during  the  classroom  hours,  calling  on  one  student  after 
another.  With  that  kind  of  a  method,  I  couldn't  possibly  get  around 
the  class  in  the  course  of  a  whole  year. 

So,  I  had  to  revert  to  lectures.   I  didn't  know  what  else  to 
revert  to,  how  else  to  do  it.   This  was  disappointing.   It  meant 
that  I  was  doing  all  the  talking,  and  it  also  meant  that  I  did  not 
get  acquainted  with  the  students  in  my  class.   I  don't  know  now  who 
they  were.   Every  once  in  a  while  I'll  run  across  someone  who  says 
that  he  took  that  course,  but  I  wouldn't  have  known  it. 

Another  thing  about  the  school  that  surprised  me  very  much,  and 
I  still  don't  regard  it  with  approval,  was  the  lack  of  any  kind  of 
plan  or  overview  of  what  was  being  taught  or  how  it  was  being 
taught . 

I  had  never  done  any  teaching  before  I  was  asked  to  take  on  this 
position.   I  thought  that  of  course  there  would  be  some  sort  of 
indoctrination  course  for  new  professors,  new  people  who  were  under 
taking  teaching,  about  methods,  about  lectures,  about  case  books 
that  were  accepted,  but  particularly  about  examinations,  which  was 
a  difficult  thing  to  do,  how  to  prepare  proper  examinations  and  how 
to  evaluate  them  when  you  got  the  results.  When  I  made  inquiry 
about  this,  I  was  regarded  as — I  don't  know  whether  to  say  as  an 
idiot,  or  somebody  who  was  absolutely  subversive.   They  thought 
that  this  infringed  on  academic  freedom  and  it  was  simply  against 
all  precedent  for  one  professor  to  make  the  slightest  suggestion  to 
another  about  how  he  might  do  this  or  might  do  that  in  conducting 
his  courses. 

Well,  no  professor  ever  came  in  and  listened  to  my  courses  to 
see  how  I  was  doing,  and  I  realized  that  it  would  be  out  of  order 
for  me  to  go  and  sit  in  their  courses  and  try  to  pick  up  something 
in  the  way  of  technique.   Frankly,  I  don't  think  that  was  a  good 


317 


Olney:   attitude.   I  don't  know  whether  it  still  prevails  or  not,  but  I 

think  it's  ridiculous  to  talk  about  assists  in  teaching  methods  as 
being  infringements  on  academic  freedom.   Well,  so  much  for  that, 
[telephone  interruption] 

Anyway,  when  I  did  decide  to  take  this  appointment  in  Washington, 
Arthur  Sherry  is  the  one  who  succeeded  me.   He  took  over  my  courses 
and  finished  them.   He  and  Alan  had  both  been  working  on  our  final 
report  for  the  crime  commission,  so  that  the  final  report  went  ahead 
and  was  put  out  and  edited  by  Arthur  and  by  Alan  Lindsay. 


Coming  to  Washington 

[Subsequent  to  this  portion  of  the  interview,  Mr.  Olney  wrote  an 
account  of  why  he  joined  the  Justice  Department.   Since  this 
account  was  more  complete  than  the  tape-recorded  interview,  it 
has  been  substituted  here  for  the  relevant  portion  of  the  interview 
transcript. ] 

Why  I  Joined  the  Department  of  Justice 

Olney:   During  these  years  of  the  Watergate  scandals  in  the  Nixon  administra 
tion  with  their  unsavory  revelations  of  subservience,  dishonesty, 
and  malfeasance  of  many  of  the  principal  men  in  authority  in  the 
Department  of  Justice,  I  have  been  asked,  delicately  but  nonetheless 
pointedly,  by  children,  grandchildren,  and  friends  who  know  that  I 
served  from  1953  to  1957  as  assistant  attorney  general  in  charge  of 
the  criminal  division,  how  I  ever  got  into  such  a  can  of  worms  as 
the  Justice  Department.* 

If  the  Department  of  Justice  can  be  called  "a  can  of  worms"  now, 
it  is  also  true  that  in  1952,  and  for  some  years  before,  the  reputa 
tion  of  the  department  for  honesty  and  integrity,  and  of  the  Truman 
administration  generally,  had  been  sinking  lower  and  lower.   Con 
gressional  investigations  had  revealed  widespread  influence  peddling, 
strong  suspicions  of  wholesale  fixing  of  income  tax  cases,  and  other 
acts  of  malfeasance.   President  Truman  had  been  forced  to  fire  his 
attorney  general,  former  Senator  Howard  McGrath  of  Rhode  Island, 
because  of  his  refusal  to  disclose  his  own  sources  of  income  or  the 
sources  of  income  of  his  assistants  in  the  Justice  Department  to  a 
special  appointee  of  the  president's  charged  with  the  duty  of 
investigating  allegations  of  graft  in  the  department.   These  and 
many  other  occurrences  had  badly  shaken  public  confidence  in  the 
department.   The  general  reputation  of  the  department  in  1952  was, 


See  Appendix  E. 


318 


Olney:    in  my  opinion,  about  as  low  as  it  has  been  during  Richard  Nixon's 
last  years  in  office.   Nevertheless,  in  January,  1953,  I  accepted 
appointment  as  assistant  attorney  general  in  charge  of  the  criminal 
division.  What  follows  is  my  explanation  of  what  induced  me  to 
undertake  that  responsibility. 

By  the  spring  of  1952  the  active  work  of  the  second  Special 
Crime  Study  Commission  on  Organized  Crime  of  the  State  of  California, 
for  which  I  had  been  chief  counsel,  was  nearly  at  an  end.   I  had 
resumed  my  full-time  teaching  activities  on  the  Berkeley  campus  of 
the  University  of  California  in  the  School  of  Law  and  in  the  School 
of  Criminology.   At  the  same  time  the  final  report  of  the  commission 
was  being  prepared  and  in  this  work  I  was  being  assisted  by  Alan  A. 
Lindsay  and  Arthur  Sherry,  both  of  whom  had  been  very  active  in  the 
commission's  work  and  knew  it  thoroughly. 

The  commission's  report  would,  of  course,  be  drafted  by  the  staff, 
submitted  by  the  commission  to  the  director  of  the  Department  of 
Corrections,  and  through  him  to  Governor  Earl  Warren. 

1952  was  an  election  year.   As  early  as  the  spring  it  seemed 
probable  that  Governor  Earl  Warren  would  be  a  candidate  for  the 
presidency  of  the  United  States.   I  believed  the  governor  would 
make  a  fine  president,  but  I  was  in  no  position  to  take  an  active 
part  in  his  campaign.   During  the  summer  the  party  conventions  were 
held,  the  Democrats  nominating  Governor  Adlai  Stevenson  of  Illinois, 
and  the  Republicans  General  Dwight  D.  Eisenhower.   Neither  candidate 
filled  me  with  any  very  strong  enthusiasm.   It  was  true  that  Adlai 
Stevenson  had  a  good  record  as  governor  of  Illinois  and  was  exper 
ienced  in  civil  government  and  domestic  politics,  which  is  an 
important  qualification  for  a  president.   During  the  campaign, 
Governor  Stevenson  did  not  make  a  very  good  impression  on  me,  at 
least.  He  seemed  to  be  brilliant  and  witty,  but  somehow  uncertain 
and  indecisive  as  to  his  objectives  and  even  as  to  whether  he  wanted 
to  be  president  at  all.  While  General  Eisenhower  had  never  held  a 
domestic  public  office,  nor  taken  any  part  in  domestic  politics,  he 
had  had  a  most  extraordinary  background  of  experience  in  Europe, 
dealing  with  all  kinds  of  different  people  and  different  nations. 
His  record  seemed  to  indicate  that  he  had  real  powers  of  leadership 
and  the  ability  to  make  decisions. 

During  the  campaign  Elizabeth,  my  wife,  and  I  vacillated  between 
these  candidates,  although  we  both  ended  up  voting  for  General 
Eisenhower. 

There  were  two  incidents  in  the  campaign  that  caused  me  to  have 
misgivings  about  the  general.   The  first  was  the  general's  reaction 
or,  rather,  lack  of  reaction  to  a  speech  made  by  Senator  Joseph 
McCarthy  of  Wisconsin,  in  which  he  referred  to  General  George 


319 


Olney:   Marshall  as  a  "traitor."  General  Marshall,  in  my  opinion,  was  one 

of  the  great  men  of  the  age  and  as  fine,  true,  and  loyal  an  American 
as  our  country  has  ever  produced .   He  was  the  author  of  the  famous 
Marshall  Plan  which  saved  Europe  from  anarchy  after  World  War  II  and 
he  had  been  President  Truman's  secretary  of  state.   Furthermore, 
Eisenhower  was  deeply  obligated  to  General  Marshall  because  it  was 
General  Marshall  who  had  given  Eisenhower  his  opportunities  of 
command  from  the  time  he  was  only  a  lieutenant  colonel  and  who  had 
finally  been  instrumental  in  selecting  General  Eisenhower  as  the 
Commander  in  Chief  for  the  Allied  Armies  in  Europe.   Yet,  when 
Senator  McCarthy  made  his  outrageous  accusation  against  General 
Marshall,  General  Eisenhower  remained  silent.   Indeed,  during  the 
campaign  he  even  appeared  on  one  occasion  in  Wisconsin  on  the  same 
platform  with  Senator  McCarthy.   To  me  this  did  not  seem  to  show  the 
moral  courage  to  be  expected  of  a  President  of  the  United  States. 

The  second  incident  of  the  campaign  that  gave  me  misgivings 
about  General  Eisenhower  as  a  future  president  was  his  treatment  of 
his  running  mate  for  the  vice-presidency,  Richard  Nixon.   During  the 
campaign  it  came  to  light  that  Richard  Nixon,  while  serving  in  the 
United  States  Senate,  had  been  the  recipient  and  beneficiary  of  a 
large  slush  fund  contributed  by  a  group  of  rich  men  in  Los  Angeles, 
the  money  having  apparently  been  used  by  Nixon  to  pay  travel  and 
other  personal  expenses.   This  had  all  been  done  in  secrecy.   The 
public  reaction  was  most  unfavorable  and  there  were  demands  from 
many  fellow  Republicans  that  his  name  be  removed  from  the  ticket. 
Nixon  announced  that  he  would  go  on  television  and  make  a  public 
explanation  of  the  slush  fund.   The  result  was  what  is  usually 
called  the  "Checkers  Speech,"  Checkers  being  the  name  of  the  Nixon 
family  dog.   The  gist  of  Nixon's  explanation  of  the  slush  fund  was 
that  he  needed  the  money,  but  he  accompanied  this  with  an  intolerable 
amount  of  corn  about  Mrs.  Nixon's  Republican  cloth  coat,  in  contrast 
to  the  mink  coats  of  the  Truman  administration,  and  with  tear- 
jerking  remarks  about  the  family  dog,  Checkers.   After  hearing  the 
speech  I  thought  there  was  no  doubt  that  Nixon  would  be  removed 
from  the  ticket,  so  I  was  very  surprised  to  see  on  TV  the  next  day 
General  Eisenhower  put  his  arm  around  Nixon  and  say,  "Dick,  you're 
my  boy."  Notwithstanding  all  this,  I  did  vote  for  General 
Eisenhower . 

In  November  of  1952,  General  Eisenhower  was  elected  President  of 
the  United  States  to  take  office  in  January,  1953.   I  had  no  expec 
tation  that  this  election  would  affect  me  personally.   Because  of 
the  extensive  publicity  I  had  received  in  my  work  for  the  crime 
commission,  there  was  speculation  in  the  press  that  the  new 
administration  might  appoint  me  United  States  Attorney  for  the 
Northern  District  of  California.   This  was  no  more  than  speculation 
and  I  did  nothing  to  pursue  it,  although  I  admit  I  would  have  con 
sidered  such  an  appointment  seriously.   Shortly  after  the  election 
the  newspapers  reported  that  President-elect  Eisenhower  intended  to 


320 


Olney:   nominate  Herbert  Brownell,  Jr.  Attorney  General  of  the  United  States 
and  William  P.  Rogers  as  deupty  attorney  general.   I  had  never  met 
Mr.  Brownell  and  only  knew  that  he  had  been  General  Eisenhower's 
campaign  manager  and  was  an  old  friend  and  political  associate  of 
Governor  Thomas  Dewey  of  New  York.   I  did  know  Mr.  Rogers,  however, 
who  was  to  be  deputy  attorney  general.   The  circumstances  are  rather 
curious  and  are  as  follows. 

A  year  or  two  before,  when  the  Special  Crime  Study  Commission  on 
Organized  Crime  was  active  and  was  receiving  a  good  deal  of  publicity, 
Fred  Howser,  who  was  then  attorney  general  of  California,  filed  a 
libel  suit  in  Washington,  B.C.  against  Drew  Pearson,  the  newspaper 
columnist,  because  of  an  article  that  Pearson  had  published  in 
Washington  and  elsewhere  in  the  United  States,  stating  or  at  least 
intimating  that  he,  Howser,  had  taken  bribes  from  bookmakers  some 
years  previously  when  he  was  a  city  prosecutor  in  Long  Beach, 
California.   To  represent  him  in  this  libel  suit,  Pearson  retained 
William  P.  Rogers  of  Washington,  D.C. 

Rogers  came  to  California  to  interview  witnesses  in  preparation 
for  the  trial.   Pearson's  newspaper  story  was  based  on  a  statement 
he  had  taken  from  an  informer  who  had  tried  to  sell  the  same  story 
to  the  crime  commission  before  ever  talking  to  Pearson.   Rogers 
interviewed  me  extensively  about  this  informer  and  his  story  and 
whether  we  thought  it  was  believable.   I  told  Rogers  that  we  had 
investigated  the  informer's  story  thoroughly  but  could  find  no 
corroboration  for  his  statements.   The  informer  wanted  us  to  put 
him  on  the  payroll  and  with  this  objective  we  suspected  that  he  was 
merely  telling  us  what  he  thought  we  wanted  to  hear.   I  told  Mr. 
Rogers  that  we  could  not  vouch  for  the  informant's  credibility, 
that  we  had  not  accepted  his  story,  although  we  had  not  been  able 
to  prove  that  it  was  untrue. 

When  the  case  came  to  trial,  Mr.  Rogers  asked  me  to  come  to 
Washington  to  be  available  as  a  witness  if  needed,  and  this  I  did, 
taking  Elizabeth  with  me.  Mr.  Rogers  defended  the  case  successfully 
without  the  necessity  of  having  to  call  me  as  a  witness  at  all,  for 
which  I  was  very  glad. 

After  the  taking  of  testimony  was  over,  Drew  Pearson  had  a  little 
dinner  party  at  his  unique  house  on  Dumbarton  Street  in  Georgetown. 
There  Elizabeth  and  I  met  Mr.  Rogers'  wife,  Adele,  for  the  first 
time.  We  were  both  charmed  by  her  and  Mr.  Rogers  as  well  and  I  was 
full  of  admiration  for  Mr.  Rogers'  qualities  as  a  trial  lawyer. 
While  I  was  getting  to  know  Mr.  Rogers,  he  was  becoming  equally 
familiar  with  the  work  of  the  Special  Crime  Study  Commission  on 
Organized  Crime  in  California  and  with  my  work  as  its  chief  counsel, 
but  I  had  no  thought  that  this  would  affect  my  future. 


321 


Olney:   On  a  day  in  early  December,  1952,  I  was  in  my  office  in  the  law 

school  with  Elizabeth,  who  was  helping  me  with  some  of  my  personal 
files.   The  telephone  rang  and  I  asked  her  to  answer  it.   I  heard  a 
voice  open  the  conversation  by  saying  to  her,  "Elizabeth,  this  is 
Bill  Rogers  in  Washington.   How  would  you  like  to  come  here  to  live?" 
There  was  quite  a  long  pause  and  then,  "Bill,  now  that  you  ask,  I 
really  do  not  think  I  would  like  to  live  in  Washington."   "Oh  yes, 
you  would,"  he  said,  "You  would  just  love  it  here."  After  some 
more  of  the  same,  he  asked  to  speak  to  me. 

When  I  got  on  the  telephone  he  asked  me  if  I  knew  that  General 
Eisenhower  intended  to  nominate  Herbert  Brownell  to  be  attorney 
general  and  that  he,  Rogers,  was  to  be  nominated  as  deputy  attorney 
general.   I  told  him  I  had  read  about  it  in  the  newspapers.   "Well," 
he  said,  "we  want  you  to  be  an  assistant  attorney  general  and  to 
take  charge  of  the  criminal  division." 

I'm  not  going  to  try  to  repeat  any  more  of  the  conversation.   I 
was  taken  utterly  by  surprise.   I  do  recall  expressing  my  gratifica 
tion  and  appreciation  of  the  suggested  appointment  and  I  know  that 
I  was  most  emphatic  that  I  did  not  want  to  leave  California  or  the 
University,  and  did  not  believe  that  it  was  necessary  for  me  to 
change  my  life  and  the  life  of  my  family  so  drastically. 

Mr.  Rogers  did  not  attempt  to  persuade  me  over  the  telephone  to 
change  my  mind,  but  he  did  tell  me  that  Mr.  Brownell  was  requesting 
specifically  that  I  come  to  New  York  to  talk  with  him  about  the 
position.   He  made  it  clear  that  I  would  not  be  committing  myself 
to  any  extent  by  making  this  trip.   He  made  the  point  that  the  offer 
of  a  presidential  appointment  is  usually  regarded  as  an  honor  and 
that  a  decent  respect  for  the  honor  and  proper  regard  for  the  man 
offering  it  would  indicate  that  at  least  I  should  talk  the  matter 
over  with  Mr.  Brownell  when  he  asked  to  see  me  and  not  reject  an 
appointment  as  important  as  this  right  out  of  hand.   I  couldn't 
resist  this  line  of  argument  and  accordingly  agreed  to  make  the 
trip. 

Mr.  Brownell  was  in  New  York  City  and  according  to  Mr.  Rogers 
I  could  see  him  in  Mr.  Brownell 's  law  office  just  as  soon  as  I 
could  get  there.  When  I  agreed  to  go  I  reminded  Mr.  Rogers  that 
with  the  Korean  War  in  progress  I  had  no  priority  on  the  airlines 
and  would  therefore  have  to  make  the  trip  by  railroad  train. 

A  day  or  so  later  I  succeeded  in  getting  a  compartment  on  the 
Southern  Pacific's  City  of  San  Francisco  as  far  as  Chicago.   I  had 
made  my  first  transcontinental  railroad  trip  at  the  age  of  twelve 
and  I  had  made  a  good  many  thereafter.   This  trip  to  see  Mr. 
Brownell  was  over  the  same  route  and  I  thought  it  would  probably 


322 


Olney:   be  my  last  transcontinental  trip  on  a  railroad  train.   I  took  a  good 
look  at  the  scenery  which  had  become  fairly  familiar  over  the  years . 
Because  of  the  war  conditions,  it  was  impossible  to  make  an  advance 
reservation  to  travel  from  Chicago  to  New  York.   It  was  with  very 
great  difficulty  that  I  finally  succeeded  in  getting  space  on  the 
Pennsylvania  and  finally  arrived  in  New  York.   I  notified  Mr. 
Brownell  of  my  arrival  and  at  his  request  called  upon  him  at  number 
25  Broadway  in  the  law  offices  of  the  firm  of  Lord,  Day  and  Lord. 

I  thought  I  was  well  prepared  for  my  interview  with  Mr.  Brownell. 
On  the  train  on  the  way  to  New  York  I  had  had  plenty  of  time  to 
marshal  all  the  arguments  against  disrupting  my  academic  life  in 
California.   I  knew  that  I  did  not  want  to  go  to  Washington  under 
any  circumstances  or  for  any  position.   I  entered  Mr.  Brownell' s 
office  with  the  confident  expectation  of  convincing  him  of  the 
validity  and  sincerity  of  my  reasons.   In  any  case,  after  expressing 
my  thanks  for  the  confidence  and  honor  he  had  done  me,  I  would 
decline  any  appointment  in  Washington.   I  had  discussed  this  at 
length  with  Elizabeth  before  leaving  Berkeley  and  had  assured  her 
that  this  was  the  position  I  expected  to  take. 

It  turned  out  that  I  was  not  prepared  for  Mr.  Brownell.   The 
press  of  the  day  liked  to  picture  him  as  an  astute,  slick  political 
type.   I  had  had  too  much  experience  with  the  press  to  assume  that 
this  picture  was  true,  but  it  is  evident  that  I  did  not  know 
exactly  what  to  expect.   Accordingly,  it  was  with  surprise  that  I 
found  myself  encountering  a  man  who  was  obviously  friendly,  natural, 
and  easy,  who  seemed  utterly  free  of  affectation  and  yet  possessed 
a  great  personal  dignity.  He  seemed  to  exhibit  integrity  in  both 
manner  and  speech.   Obviously  he  was  highly  intelligent  and  he 
seemed  on  first  impression  to  be  a  man  with  powers  of  decision  and 
one  well  qualified  to  run  a  large  law  office  or  administer  a  large 
governmental  department. 

Mr.  Brownell  was  not  impatient  with  the  reasons  I  advanced  for 
wanting  to  continue  my  life  in  California  and,  indeed,  showed  under 
standing  and  sympathy  for  my  position.   He  parried  my  personal  argu 
ments  by  describing  the  extraordinary  opportunity  for  public  service 
in  the  Department  of  Justice  under  the  then  existing  circumstances. 
The  proper  administration  of  justice,  he  believed,  was  the  most 
important  single  function  of  government.   Neither  the  legislative 
not  executive  branches  of  government  could  function  effectively  and 
attain  their  true  ends  excepting  on  a  foundation  of  justice.   To 
attain  justice,  the  laws,  both  civil  and  criminal,  in  his  opinion, 
must  be  applied  humanely  and  intelligently  to  everyone  alike  without 
regard  for  race  or  religion  or  politics  or  economic  power.  Mr. 
Brownell  said  that  as  of  that  time,  the  Department  of  Justice  was 
not  well  regarded  by  the  public.   There  had  been  so  many  scandals 


June  5,  1976,  50th  wedding  anniversary  of  Elizabeth 
and  Warren  Olney  III,  with  children  Elizabeth  Olney 
Anderson,  Warren  Olney  IV,  and  Margaret  Olney. 


Elizabeth  and  Warren  Olney  III  departing  from  the 
Oakland  Airport  for  President  Eisenhower's  inaugural 
ceremonies  and  his  new  post  as  assistant  U.S.  Attorney 
General  and  chief  of  the  Justice  Department  crimes 


\«     To  f»ti  o  t-ir  1  Q  ^  "5 


323 


Olney:   that  the  public  had  lost  confidence,  not  only  in  the  department  but 
in  the  courts  as  well.  He  regarded  this  as  a  very  serious  matter 
and  one  which  must  be  changed  for  the  best  interest  of  the  country. 
He  believed  that  the  new  administration  had  a  great  opportunity  to 
make  such  a  change  and  it  was  the  hope  of  attaining  this  goal — 
restoring  public  confidence  in  the  administration  of  justice — that 
had  led  him  to  accept  appointment  as  attorney  general.  This  was  the 
work  he  hoped  I  would  assist  and  share. 

Mr.  Brownell  said  he  thought  the  criminal  division  was  of  first 
importance.   Because  criminal  cases  always  draw  so  much  publicity, 
the  public  tended  to  judge  the  whole  department  according  to  how 
fairly  and  efficiently  they  felt  the  criminal  law  was  being  admin 
istered.   In  view  of  this  he  said  that  he  felt  he  should  have  an 
assistant  in  charge  of  the  criminal  division  in  whom  he  could  have 
sufficient  confidence  to  delegate  practically  all  the  major  decisions. 
This  was  necessary,  he  explained,  because  the  department  was  so  very 
large  with  so  many  intricate  matters  that  no  attorney  general  could 
expect  to  decide  all  important  matters  himself.   He  told  me  that  if 
I  were  to  accept  the  position,  he  would  delegate  to  me  full  respon 
sibility  for  deciding  the  matters  that  came  across  my  desk.   There 
would  be,  of  course,  occasions  when  I  would  want  to  consult  with 
him  or  when  he  would  want  to  be  consulted  before  action  was  taken, 
but  these  would  be  decisions  reached  by  consultation  and  not  march 
ing  orders.   He  said  there  would  be  no  interference  in  criminal 
cases  from  above,  either  from  him  or  from  any  other  department  or 
agency  or  even  from  the  White  House,  although  he  trusted  that  when 
I  did  take  action  I  would  always  let  him  know  in  advance  what  to 
expect  so  that  he  would  not  be  taken  by  surprise  and  would  try  to 
avoid  giving  offense  elsewhere  unnecessarily.   He  spoke  of  my  past 
experience  with  organized  crime  and  racketeers  and  expressed  the 
hope  that  I  would  make  good  use  of  this  experience  and  would  develop 
more  effective  methods  for  dealing  with  the  rackets  at  the  federal 
level  than  had  been  used  up  to  that  time.   He  told  me  that  this  was 
one  of  the  reasons  he  regarded  me  as  particularly  well  qualified  to 
take  on  the  criminal  division. 

As  Mr.  Brownell  described  his  concept  of  what  the  Department  of 
Justice  could  and  should  be,  I  heard  him  putting  my  own  ideals  into 
words.   As  he  described  the  importance  and  urgency  of  the  work  to  be 
done,  I  realized  it  was  a  conviction  which  I  shared.   And  as  he 
described  what  he  thought  should  be  done  in  the  criminal  division, 
I  realized  as  I  had  not  before  that  the  work  he  was  asking  me  to  do 
was  directly  in  line  with  and  a  logical  development  from  the  work  I 
had  been  doing  in  California.   Furthermore,  as  I  watched  him  and 
listened  to  him,  the  conviction  came  to  me  that  here  was  a  man  to 
whom  I  could  be  loyal  and  who  would  be  loyal  to  me  and  who  would 
support  me  as  long  as  I  was  trying  to  carry  out  the  kind  of  programs 
and  concepts  that  he  was  describing.   I  began  to  realize  that  when 
asked,  I  could  not  in  good  conscience  refuse  to  take  part  in  such  an 
important  and  worthwhile  effort. 


324 


Olney:   I  do  not  know  how  long  we  talked,  but  at  the  end  I  found  myself,  to 
my  surprise,  agreeing  to  serve.   "Fine,"  said  Mr.  Brownell,  "Now  I 
want  to  take  you  to  meet  General  Eisenhower."  We  went  to  the 
general's  suite  in  the  Commodore  Hotel.   There  I  was  introduced  to 
the  general  by  Mr.  Brownell,  who  told  him  I  had  agreed  to  take 
charge  of  the  criminal  division.   The  general  expressed  his  gratifi 
cation,  said  he  was  sure  the  task  would  not  be  easy  or  simple,  and 
he  expressed  his  confidence  in  my  ability  to  perform. 

Following  this  brief  interview  with  General  Eisenhower,  I  left 
Mr.  Brownell  and  went  back  to  my  hotel  wondering  about  the  conse 
quences  of  what  I  had  done.   I  have  never  regretted  the  decision. 
The  experience  of  the  following  years  has  shown  that  the  impression 
of  Mr.  Brownell  that  I  formed  at  the  first  meeting  was  a  true  one. 
In  my  work  in  the  criminal  division  he  supported  me  without  fail 
on  everything  that  could  be  regarded  as  a  moral  or  ethical  issue. 
On  lesser  matters  when  his  views  differed  from  mine,  he  was  always 
reasonable,  he  always  explained  his  reasons,  more  often  than  not 
he  ended  convincing  me  that  he  was  right,  and  even  if  he  didn't, 
I  was  always  able  to  retain  full  confidence  in  his  motivation  and 
judgment. 

I  did  not  consult  with  anyone  about  accepting  this  appointment. 
It  would  have  been  most  natural  for  me  to  advise  with  Governor  Earl 
Warren,  who  had  been  my  friend  for  so  long,  but  I  did  not  do  so 
because  when  I  left  California  I  fully  expected  to  decline  the 
offer.   I  changed  my  mind  and  made  the  decision  to  alter  the  whole 
direction  of  my  career  on  the  basis  solely  of  those  few  minutes 
when  I  first  met  with  Mr.  Brownell. 

I  am  not  the  only  one  who  so  responded  to  Mr.  Brownell 's  person 
ality  and  leadership.   Judge  Stanley  Barnes  is  another  case  in 
point.   For  some  weeks  or  even  months  Mr.  Brownell  had  difficulty 
in  finding  a  man  with  what  he  regarded  as  proper  qualifications  to 
take  on  the  antitrust  division.   He  wanted  someone  with  integrity 
and  courage,  with  broad  trial  experience  and  recognized  standing 
in  the  profession,  but  who  had  not  been  a  representative  of  the 
big  business  interests  that  are  the  main  target  of  the  antitrust 
laws.   Finally  the  name  of  Stanley  Barnes  was  suggested.   At  that 
time,  Stanley  Barnes  was  chief  judge  of  the  largest  trial  court  in 
the  world,  the  Superior  Court  of  Los  Angeles  County,  a  position  of 
much  importance  and  good  potential  future  prospects  for  anyone 
interested  in  a  career  on  the  bench. 

I  had  known  "Stan"  Barnes  for  years  and  one  day  he  dropped  into 
my  office  in  Washington.   He  asked  me  how  I  liked  being  in  the 
Department  of  Justice  and  then  told  me  that  he  had  been  called  back 
to  Washington  by  Mr.  Brownell,  who  had  offered  to  recommend  his 
appointment  as  the  assistant  attorney  general  in  charge  of  the 
antitrust  division. 


325 


Olney:   "Of  course,  I  feel  flattered  and  honored,"  he  told  me,  "but  I  had  to 
tell  Mr.  Brownell  that  I  could  not  possibly  consider  it.   I  am  very 
happy  where  I  am  and  do  not  want  to  leave  California." 

I  made  no  comment  about  this  and  we  went  on  to  other  things. 
However,  when  Stan  got  up  to  leave  I  said,  "I  am  looking  forward  to 
seeing  you  again  shortly." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  he  said  as  he  reached  the  door. 

"I  think  you  will  find  that  Mr.  Brownell  is  a  very  persuasive 
man,"  I  said,  and  Stanley  left. 

Only  a  week  or  so  later  Stan  was  back  in  Washington  and  the  first 
thing  he  said  to  me  was,  "You  are  indeed  right.  Herbert  Brownell 
can  be  a  very  persuasive  man."   Stan  had  accepted  appointment  to 
the  antitrust  division. 

I  do  not  happen  to  know  the  circumstances  of  the  appointment  of 
Mr.  Brownell 's  other  assistants,  but  I  do  know  that  he  succeeded  in 
bringing  into  the  department  to  head  the  several  divisions  as  fine 
a  group  of  men  and  lawyers  as  I  have  ever  known.   They  included 
John  V.  Lindsay,  executive  assistant  to  the  attorney  general; 
William  P.  Rogers,  deputy  attorney  general;  Simon  Soboloff ,  solicitor 
general;  J.  Lee  Rankin,  office  of  legal  counsel;  Stanley  N.  Barnes, 
antitrust  division;  H.  Brian  Holland,  tax  division;  Warren  E. 
Burger,  civil  division;  Perry  W.  Morton,  lands  division;  and  Dallas 
Townsend,  office  of  alien  property.   The  character  and  ability  of 
these  men  under  Mr.  Brownell 's  leadership  restored  discipline  and 
morale  within  the  department  and  respect  and  good  name  outside  the 
department.   When  Mr.  Brownell  resigned  in  1957,  the  Department  of 
Justice  was  no  can  of  worms.   It  was  an  honest,  well  administered 
public  law  office  of  good  repute. 

At  the  time  I  went  to  New  York  City  to  see  Mr.  Brownell,  my 
daughter  Margaret  was  studying  in  the  Quaker  School  at  Pendle  Hill. 
Following  my  interviews  with  Mr.  Brownell  and  General  Eisenhower, 
she  went  to  dinner  with  me  and  then  we  went  to  see  the  musical, 
"The  King  and  I."   It  was  Christmas  Eve.   The  next  morning, 
Christmas  Day,  I  set  out  for  home.   At  this  time  I  was  able  to  get 
air  transportation  on  one  of  TWA's  Constellations.   There  was  no 
trouble  about  reservations.   Indeed,  on  Christmas  Day  I  had  the 
plane  practically  to  myself.   The  flight  was  unusually  scenic.   The 
Middle  West  and  the  Rocky  Mountains  were  covered  solid  with  snow. 
The  visibility  was  unbelievably  good.   As  we  crossed  the  Mississippi 
and  were  flying  over  Iowa,  the  thought  occurred  to  me  that  somewhere 
on  the  ground  that  was  within  the  range  of  my  eyesight  was  the  place 
where  my  grandfather  had  lived  with  his  parents  only  one  hundred 
years  before  in  a  little  one-room  cabin  with  no  shoes  for  his  feet, 


326 


Olney:   no  school,  no  money,  as  he  has  related  in  the  account  of  his  life 
that  he  started  for  his  grandchildren.   Here  was  I,  the  grandson 
whom  he  had  known,  on  an  incredible  flight  over  what  had  been  such 
a  primitive  backwoods  only  a  hundred  years  ago. 

I  arrived  home  in  due  course  and  on  Christmas  night  announced  to 
the  assembled  family  that  contrary  to  all  the  declarations  I  had 
made  on  departing  for  New  York,  I  had  accepted  appointment  as 
Assistant  Attorney  General  of  the  United  States  and  that  we  were 
going  to  move  to  Washington,  D.C.   This  was  probably  not  the  most 
welcome  Christmas  present  for  Elizabeth.   She  was  enjoying  University 
life.   Yet,  she  uttered  no  word  of  complaint  but  immediately  began 
planning  for  the  move. 

[the  interview  transcript  resumes] 

Olney:   Now,  it  was  about  Christmas  that  I  had  told  Mr.  Brownell  that  I 

would  accept  this  appointment.   The  inauguration  was  on  January  20, 
so  we  had  to  make  arrangements  to  leave  Berkeley  and  go  to  Washing 
ton.   We  kept  our  home  here  in  Berkeley  deliberately.   The  reason 
was  that  I  was  of  the  view  that  I  wouldn't  last  long. 

The  criminal  division  is  the  most  explosive  division  in  the 
department,  and  the  political  life  of  an  assistant  in  charge  of 
the  criminal  division  is  notoriously  short.   I  was  convinced  that 
mine  would  be  too,  not  because  of  disagreements  or  things  of  that 
kind  that  might  arise  between  me  and  the  attorney  general — I  didn't 
think  that  would  happen,  and  it  never  did — but  the  cases  and  the 
matters  that  get  into  the  criminal  division  are  so  often  front-page 
matters  and  there  are  circumstances  connected  with  them  that  are 
outside  of  anybody's  control.   There  are  decisions  that  have  to  be 
made,  both  at  the  beginning  and  at  the  end  of  these  things,  where 
frequently  there  is  no  right  decision,  and  you're  damned  if  you  do 
and  you're  damned  if  you  don't,  either  way.   But  you  have  to  make 
the  decision,  and  you  are  responsible.   Sometimes  these  decisions 
can  bring  on  consequences  quite  unforeseen,  or  you  have  to  make  the 
decision  even  if  you  can  foresee  them,  but  the  row  that  is  stirred 
up  and  the  situation  that  is  created  may  well  be  such  that  it  just 
becomes  impossible  for  you  to  stay  in  the  office,  and  you  have  to 
leave. 

Now,  I  knew  that  that  sort  of  thing  happened  with  great  frequency. 
I  expected  it  to  happen  to  me,  and  so  we  always  kept  our  home  here, 
figuring  that  it  wouldn't  be  very  long  until  we'd  be  back. 

Stein:   Was  that  something  that  you  had  discussed  with  Brownell? 

Olney:   No.   I'd  talked  with  my  wife  about  it  and  we  decided  not  to  sell 
the  house  and  not  to  lease  it  for  any  extended  period,  not  longer 
than  a  year  at  the  most. 


327 


Olney : 


Stein: 
Olney : 
Stein: 

Olney: 


So  we  kept  our  house  all  the  time  we  were  away,  and  this  worked  out 
very  conveniently  for  us  because  oftentimes  the  house  was  vacant 
during  the  summer,  and  we  could  move  in  and  use  it  ourselves,  and 
have  our  children  and  our  grandchildren  here  just  as  though  we  had 
been  living  here  all  along.   So  it  worked  out  very  satisfactorily. 
We  were  extremely  fortunate  in  having  good  tenants  most  of  the  time. 
We  only  had  one  unpleasant  experience  with  a  tenant  and  that  didn't 
amount  to  much.   The  rest  of  them  were  delightful  people. 

One  of  them,  however — it  was  amusing  because  the  internal  security 
work  that  we  had  included  the  cases  against  people  in  the  Department 
of  State.   One  of  them  was  John  Service.   McCarthy  had  been  very 
critical  of  Service,  and  there  were  investigative  reports  pending. 
We  leased  our  Berkeley  house  through  an  agent  who  was  an  old  friend. 
The  agent  told  us  that  before  taking  the  place,  the  tenants-to-be 
wanted  to  be  sure  that  I  knew  who  they  were,  and  it  was  none  other 
than  John  Service.   I  thought  that  was  a  very  decent  thing,  indeed, 
to  make  sure  that  I  knew.   I  sent  word  back  that  it  made  not  the 
slightest  difference  to  me.  If  he  wanted  to  be  my  tenant,  I  was 
delighted  to  have  him. 

You  didn't  make  your  tenants  sign  a  loyalty  oath.   [laughter] 
No,  he  didn't  have  to  sign  a  loyalty  oath. 

So  with  your  house  taken  care  of,  you  were  ready  to  move  back  East. 
What  happened  then? 

We  got  ready  and  went  back  East  to  take  this  position.   This  time  I 
was  able  to  go  by  air,  but  I  had  nobody  in  the  department  that  I 
knew,  and  I  certainly  wanted  to  have  at  least  one  person  going  there 
with  me  at  the  beginning  that  I  did  know,  that  I  could  ask  to  help 
out.   The  man  I  got  for  that  purpose  is  Rex  Collings. 

Rex  had  been  in  the  law  school  the  first  year  that  I  taught.   He 
was  on  the  Law  Review.   He  was  not  one  of  my  students,  but  I  remem 
bered  him  because  he  was  a  very  bright  boy  and  he  was  a  little 
different  from  the  other  students.   He  was  a  good  deal  older.   He'd 
had  two  or  three  beginning  careers,  including  the  marine  corps, 
before  he  decided  to  be  a  lawyer  and  entered  law  school.   He  had 
gone  from  law  school  to  the  Department  of  Justice,  and  had  had  a 
job  in  the  appeals  and  research  section  in  the  criminal  division. 
Then  he  had  been  enticed  away  from  there  by  the  Los  Angeles  firm — 
it's  a  very  large  firm  down  there — well,  Homer  Grotty  was  the  well- 
known  lawyer  who  induced  Rex  to  go  with  the  firm  in  Los  Angeles. 

I  had  not  known  Rex  very  well,  but  my  friends  on  the  faculty  told 
me  that  they  thought  that  he'd  be  willing  to  go  with  me.   I  got  in 
touch  with  him  and  he  was . 


328 


Olney:   When  we  went  to  Washington  this  time,  we  took  American  Airlines. 

That  was  the  fastest.   There  was  no  non-stop  service  then,  and  the 
best  way  of  going  was  to  take  American  in  a  DC-6,  and  then  we  had 
to  change  planes  in  Dallas.   There  was  a  plane  from  Los  Angeles  to 
Dallas.  We  got  on  that  one  and  that  went  to  Memphis.   Then  we  went 
from  Memphis  to  Washington.   So  we  got  on  early  in  the  morning  and 
got  off  late  at  night. 

We  had  been  able  to  get  a  reservation  in  the  Wardman-Park  Hotel — 
it's  now  the  Sheraton-Park — and  the  place  was  just  loaded  with 
Republicans  there  for  the  inauguration.   We  got  a  little  room  which 
turned  out  to  be  right  over  the  entrance,  so  we  were  awake  all  night 
with  banging  doors  of  cars.   It  was  a  terrible  room. 

It  was  bitter  cold  and  the  room  had  steam  heat.   The  radiator 
was  hotter  than  anything  and  you  couldn't  turn  the  radiator  off,  so 
we  had  to  open  the  window.   So  we  had  all  these  banging  noises,  but 
after  that  they  moved  us  into  a  different  room.   That  was  sort  of  a 
housekeeping  setup  and  we  were  quite  comfortable  there. 

I  was  told  to  check  in  at  Bill  Rogers'  office,  at  the  firm  of 
which  he  was  a  member.   Although  it  was  a  New  York  firm,  it  had  a 
Washington  office  which  Bill  had  been  operating.   That  made  it  a 
good  place  for  us  to  meet  and  so  forth.  Well,  I  went  down  there 
and  met  Lee  Rankin,  who  was  to  be  the  assistant  in  charge  of  what 
we  eventually  called  the  office  of  legal  counsel.   It  'had  a  different 
name  then;  I  don't  remember  now  what  it  was.   The  purpose  of  that 
office  is  advisory.   It  advises  the  president  and  it  advises  the 
attorney  general. 

Lee  and  Mr.  Brownell  were  very  much  preoccupied  with  preparing 
certain  papers  for  the  president- to-be,  certain  proclamations  and 
things,  official  papers  that  needed  to  be  carefully  drawn,  and  they 
were  working  on  that. 

When  lunchtime  came,  I  was  somewhat  at  a  loss,  so  I  just  went 
outside  and  went  into  a  coffee  shop.   I  saw  a  man  sitting  on  a 
stool  about  to  have  a  cup  of  coffee  and  thought  I  recognized  his 
picture  from  what  I'd  seen  in  the  paper.   So  I  asked  him  if  he  was 
Mr.  Holland  from  Boston.   He  said  he  was.   This  was  H.  Brian  Holland, 
who  was  to  be  the  assistant  in  charge  of  the  tax  division. 

I  introduced  myself,  so  our  first  meeting  was  sitting  on  a  stool 

in  a  coffee  shop  having  a  bit  of  lunch  together.  We've  become  very, 

very  good  friends  indeed,  and  so  have  our  wives,  too.   But  that's 
how  I  met  him. 


329 


Olney:   Later  on — it  wasn't  that  day — my  recollection  is  that  we  were 

invited  up  to  one  of  the  minor  hotels  that  had  little  apartments 
in  it.   There  I  met  Warren  Burger.   This  was  his  room.  We  also 
became  friends. 


Stein: 
Olney : 


One  of  the  things  that  I  might  mention  is  that  it  turned  out 
that  I  was  older  than  these  other  men.   I'm  older  than  Mr.  Brownell, 
Although  they  all  had  children,  I  was  the  only  one  that  had  grand 
children  at  that  time.   This  surprised  me,  because  I  had  always 
been  associated,  in  my  work,  with  people  who  were  older  than  I. 
Anyway,  we  all  got  acquainted. 

What  was  Warren  Burger  doing  at  this  time? 

Warren  Burger  was  a  partner  in  the  leading  law  firm  in  St.  Paul, 
Minnesota.   He  had  never  held  any  public  office  or  been  in  public 
work,  but  he  had  been  very,  very  active  in  Republican  politics  in 
Minnesota  and  was  a  close  friend  and  associate  of  Harold  Stassen's. 


Stein: 


Olney : 


During  the  Republican  convention,  the  principal  candidates  were 
Taft,  Eisenhower,  Stassen,  and  Warren.  There  was  balloting  for  a 
time  without  any  candidate  having  a  majority,  and  then  the  Stassen 
delegation  led  by  Warren  Burger  finally  switched  to  Eisenhower. 
That  started  the  bandwagon  going,  and  then  more  and  more  delegates 
switched  and  Eisenhower  became  the  nominee. 

Warren  Burger  was  to  be  the  assistant  to  take  charge  of  the  civil 
division,  although  it  was  then  called  the  claims  division.  We  got 
to  know  each  other  quite  well. 

About  the  inauguration,  none  of  us  had  been  through  such  a  thing 
as  that  before,  and  we  found  that  we  had  to  have  proper  hats, 
[laughter]   Always  in  inaugurations,  up  to  that  time,  people  wore 
silk  hats,  silk  plug  hats.   I  had  one  that  fitted  me,  because  I'd 
worn  it  at  my  wedding.   I  hadn't  worn  it  since,  but  I  could  still 
put  it  on.   But  that  was  not  needed.   Eisenhower  did  not  want  us 
to  have  silk  hats.   He  had  one  of  these  Homburg  hats.   So  we  all 
had  to  get  Homburgs .   There  was  such  a  run  on  Homburgs  in  Washing 
ton  that  they  weren't  easy  to  find. 

I  can  imagine  that  every  hat  store  in  the  city  was  pretty  much  wiped 
out. 

Yes.  I  did  find  one.  Then  we  managed  to  get  tickets.  There  were 
two  sets  of  tickets.  One  was  to  enable  us  to  sit  in  the  stands  at 
the  inauguration  ceremony  on  the  east  side  of  the  capitol,  and  the 
other  set  was  for  the  parade.  The  ticket  for  the  inauguration  was 
for  me  only;  it  did  not  include  Mrs.  Olney.  She  had  to  fend  for 
herself,  and  she  did  right  well.  She  was  able  to  sit  right  below 


330 


Olney:    the  podium,  had  a  very  nice  seat  with  the  diplomatic  wives.   I  sat 
back  of  the  place  where  the  two  presidents  were,  and  where  the 
swearing  in  took  place,  with  other  members  of  the  cabinet  and  so- 
called  junior  cabinet.   The  first  assistants  to  cabinet  officers 
were  usually  lumped  together  and  they  called  it  the  junior  cabinet. 
We  were  all  up  there  together.   I  sat  next  to  Ezra  Taft  Benson, 
who  was  to  be  the  secretary  of  agriculture. 

Down  below  us  I  saw  Earl  Warren,  as  governor  of  California.   The 
governors  were  all  en  bane  around  there  too.  We  witnessed  the  giving 
of  the  oath  to  President  Eisenhower  and  left  to  try  to  see  the  parade. 
Elizabeth  and  I  failed  to  make  connections,  with  the  result  that  she 
stood  on  one  side  of  the  parade  and  I  stood  on  the  other  side  of  the 
parade,  neither  of  us  knowing  where  the  other  one  was,  and  standing 
up  for  its  full  duration.   It  was  bitter  cold.  We  finally  made  our 
way  home,  separately,  and  I  think  it  took  us  hours  to  thaw  out. 

Then  we  found  that  we  had  these  tickets  which  were  in  the  stand 
down  around  the  White  House.   But  we  didn't  know  that  and  didn't 
know  how  to  get  there  anyway. 

The  Hollands  had  been  in  Washington  before;  Brian  had  been  in 
the  tax  division  during  the  Hoover  administration.   He  knew  what 
any  inauguration  was  like,  so  he  and  Trudy  stayed  in  their  room  and 
watched  it  on  TV  [laughter],  which  was  the  smart  way  to  do  it. 

When  I  left  Berkeley  I  knew  that  I  would  need  a  dark  formal 
overcoat  for  the  inauguration  and  for  other  occasions  in  Washington, 
so  I  took  the  only  one  I  had.   It  was  a  tailor-made  overcoat  that 
my  father  had  had  made  by  Bullock  &  Jones  in  San  Francisco.  My 
father  died  in  1939,  so  you  can  see  how  old  it  was.   I  had  had  no 
occasion  to  wear  it  in  Berkeley  and  only  used  it  for  walking  the 
dog  on  wet  rainy  nights,  so  it  was  known  as  "the  walking  the  dog" 
overcoat.  We  had  it  cleaned  for  the  inauguration  and  I  wore  it. 
Later  I  tried  to  find  a  new  one,  but  we  did  not  like  any  that  we 
could  find  as  well  as  that  old  one,  so  Elizabeth  had  it  relined 
and  I  wore  "the  walking  the  dog"  overcoat  to  the  White  House  and 
everywhere  else  that  I  went  in  Washington.   I  still  have  it  and  it 
is  as  good  as  ever.   I  expect  to  pass  it  on  to  my  son  in  due  course. 
What  a  coat! 

After  that  swearing  in  on  January  20,  we  were  to  report  for  duty, 
but  we  did  not  and  could  not  take  over  our  active  work  until  we  had 
been  confirmed  by  the  Senate.   The  attorney  general  and  Brian 
Holland  and  I,  as  I  recall,  appeared — no,  I'm  mistaken.   The  attor 
ney  general  and  the  deputy  attorney  general  appeared  before  the 
Senate  committee,  and  they  were  confirmed  right  out  of  hand.   Then 
I  believe  it  was  Brian  Holland  and  I  who  were  called  before  the 
committee.   At  that  time  we  had  a  Republican  Congress.   The  chairman 
of  the  committee  was  Senator  Langer  of  North  Dakota,  a  very  strange 
man,  indeed. 


331 


Olney:    There  was  no  problem  about  Brian  Holland,  but  they  asked  me  a  good 
many  questions.   I  had  supposed  there  was  no  problem  about  me,  but 
Senator  Langer  told  me  that  he  wanted  to  see  me  in  his  chambers 
after  the  hearing.   So  when  the  hearing  was  over  I  went  with  the 
Senator,  and  he  said  to  me  in  a  loud  voice  which  everyone  could  hear 
as  we  went  out  into  the  hall — there  was  a  crowd  of  people  around — 
and  into  the  elevator,  "You're  going  to  be  the  next  assistant  in 
charge  of  the  criminal  division,  are  you?"  "Well,"  I  said,  "Senator, 
not  unless  you  confirm  me."  "Oh,"  he  said,  "we'll  confirm  you  all 
right."  He  said,  "You  know,  I'm  an  expert  on  criminal  law.   I'm 
the  most  expert  member  of  the  Senate  on  criminal  law,  especially  on 
conspiracy."  He  said,  "I'm  the  only  member  of  the  Senate  who's  ever 
been  indicted  and  convicted  for  conspiracy.   Sure,  they  indicted  me 
and  they  tried  me  for  conspiracy."  He  said,  "I  know  all  about  the 
law."   [laughter]   With  everybody  around. 

Stein:   What  had  he  been  tried  for? 

Olney:   Well,  he  had  been  tried  when  he  was  governor  of  North  Dakota.   They 
played  a  very  rough  political  game  up  there,  and  he  had  been  tried 
on  some  charges  of  conspiring  to  improperly  divert  relief  funds, 
something  of  that  sort.   He  was  a  pretty  high-handed  old  boy  when 
he  was  governor.   During  the  Depression,  when  there  were  federal 
funds  made  available  for  relief,  the  funds  were  given  to  the  state 
to  administer.   Well,  in  North  Dakota,  Langer  took  this  fund  and  he 
put  it  in  the  bank,  and  the  name  of  the  account  where  he  put  it  was 
the  William  Langer  Relief  Fund.   So  everybody  who  got  relief  in 
North  Dakota  received  a  check  drawn  on  the  William  Langer  Relief 
Fund.   Well,  this,  needless  to  say,  drove  the  Democrats  a  little  bit 
nuts,  and  it  was  out  of  troubles  like  that  that  this  indictment  broke 
forth.   But  they  actually  did  try  him,  and  he  was  convicted,  but  it 
was  reversed  on  appeal.   He  made  no  secret  of  this. 

Well,  he  took  me  into  his  office  and  he  asked  me  if  I  had  once 
been  a  member  of  the  Institute  of  Pacific  Relations.   I  said,  "No, 
I  never  was  a  member  of  that."  I  wasn't  even  too  sure  what  it  was. 
"Well,"  he  said,  "I've  got  some  FBI  reports  here  that  indicate  that 
you  were  a  member  of  that  thing,"  And  I  said,  "Well,  I  never  was, 
Senator,  and  I  don't  know  what  it  was.   I  have  a  recollection  that 
during  my  father's  lifetime,  which  would  be  prior  to  1939  (he  died 
that  year),  somewhere  along,  I  guess,  in  '35  or  '36,  the  institute 
was  founded  by  Bishop  Parsons  and  a  number  of  others  out  here  who 
were  friends  of  my  father's  and  whom  he  respected.   I  think  that  my 
father  may  have  been  a  member  of  it  at  that  time.   But  that's  all  I 
know  about  it.   In  recent  years  I  know  nothing  about  it." 

"Well,"  he  said,  "look  at  these  reports."  And  he  showed  me  the 
FBI  reports  on  me.   If  the  Bureau  had  ever  found  out  that  he  had 
let  me  read  their  reports  about  me,  they  would  never  have  given  him 


332 


Olney:   any  more  reports.   They  are  never  supposed  to  show  reports  to  the 
subject.   But  he  showed  them  to  me.   They  were  the  funniest  things 
that  I  had  read.   They  had  gotten  terribly  confused  between  my 
father,  my  grandfather,  and  me  becuase  of  the  identity  of  names, 
and  then  my  mother,  who  sometimes  signed  her  name  Mrs.  Warren  Olney, 
Jr.   They  had  gotten  some  kind  of  mailing  list  or  something  of  that 
sort  which  indicated  that  copies  of  the  institute's  publications, 
for  a  time  at  least,  had  gone  to  2737  Belrose  Avenue,  which  was 
my  mother  and  father's  address  here  in  Berkeley.   These  mailings 
were  after  my  father's  death,  however;  although  when  I  was  in 
college  I  had  lived  at  that  address,  I  had  been  married  since  1926 
and  hadn't  lived  there  since.   So  the  Senator  decided  this  was  a 
lot  of  nonsense,  but  he  said  that  he  felt  that  he  ought  to  satisfy 
himself  in  view  of  what  was  in  the  reports. 

Well,  the  net  result  was  that  they  didn't  get  around  to  holding 
a  committee  meeting  on  me  for  something  like  three  weeks.  So  that 
meant  I  went  all  that  period  without  any  pay. 

Stein:   When  you  were  hanging  in  limbo. 

Olney:  Yes.  So  I've  always  felt  I  had  a  justified  grievance  against  those 
erroneous  reports  that  the  Bureau  had  circulating. 

Stein:  The  Bureau  must  have  had  a  report  of  some  man  who  was  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  old  if  it  spanned  the  generations  from  your  grandfather 
to  yourself . 

Olney:   Well,  they  didn't  have  anything  about  my  grandfather  in  there,  as  I 
recall.   They  had  some  reference  to  my  father  having  been  mayor  of 
Oakland,  which,  of  course,  he  never  was;  it  was  my  grandfather. 
There  were  some  things  like  that  that  indicated  that  they  didn't 
know  very  much  about  our  family. 

Well,  I  did  get  confirmed,  eventually,  and  then  Brian  Holland 
and  I  were  sworn  in  in  the  Department  of  Justice  in  February,  the 
oath  being  administered  to  us  by  Chief  Justice  Fred  Vinson.  We 
were  greatly  flattered  that  the  chief  justice  came  all  the  way 
down  to  the  department  to  administer  that  oath  to  us.   Then  we 
were  pretty  much  aboard. 


Organization  of  the  Department 

Olney:   It's  worth  mentioning  somewhing  about  how  Herbert  Brownell  got  us 
organized.  We  didn't  know  one  another  prior  to  our  appointments. 
Then  there  were  two  other  persons,  very  important  in  the  department, 
that  we  didn't  know  very  well  either.   One  of  them  was  J.  Edgar 


333 


Olney:   Hoover,  who  headed  the  FBI,  and  the  other  was  James  V.  Bennett, 
who  was  the  director  of  the  Federal  Bureau  of  Prisons,  both  of 
those  being  in  the  department. 

The  immigration  service  was  also  in  the  department.   But  Herb 
did  not  fill  that  position  of  director  of  the  immigration  service 
until  a  great  deal  later,  when  General  Swing  was  appointed  to  head 
it.  So  there  was  a  vacancy  there  at  that  time. 

Well,  Herbert  invited  us  all  to  have  lunch  with  him  every  day. 
The  attorney  general's  office  has  a  small  but  adequate  dining  room 
attached  to  the  suite  of  offices  that  he  has  and  a  very  small 
kitchen.   And  we  did,  of  course,  attend  every  day.   This  proved  to 
be  a  very  valuable  and  very  wise  thing,  because  as  we  were  all 
sitting  around  at  lunch  we  could  discuss  how  we  were  all  confronted 
with  similar  problems  of  secretaries,  of  trying  to  get  familiar  with 
our  divisions,  of  all  the  people  we  were  encountering  for  the  first 
time,  of  all  the  new  things  that  we  were  discovering  about  our  own 
positions  in  work  that  was  new.   We  went  through  all  these  exper 
iences  together,  and  it  gave  us  a  feeling  of  all  being  on  the  same 
team,  of  mutual  respect,  and  an  understanding  of  one  another's 
problems  in  the  other  divisions. 

This  had  a  continuing  effect  during  the  entire  time  that  I  was 
there  and  that  Herbert  Brownell  was  there.   There  was  never  any 
jealousy  between  assistant  attorneys  general;  there  was  never  any 
intriguing  between  the  assistants.  We  were  always  able  to  deal 
frankly  and  aboveboard,  and  to  discuss  our  affairs  without  rancor 
or  difficulty.   It  contributed  a  very  great  deal. 

Now,  I  mention  that  because  those  who  have  been  in  the  department 
for  a  very  long  time  will — like  Mrs.  Salvatore  Andretta,  better 
known  as  Patricia  Collins — she  has  been  in  the  department  as  a 
lawyer  for  forty-one  years.   She's  served  under  a  great  many  attor 
neys  general.   She  had  her  husband  have  always  been  Democrats,  but 
she  is  most  outspoken  on  this  subject.   She  said  that  this  period 
when  Herbert  Brownell  was  attorney  general  was  the  only  period  in 
her  experience  where  that  kind  of  relationship  existed  between  the 
assistants. 

Well,  this  made  our  work  very  pleasant.   We  never  felt  alone  at 
all.  We  felt  we  had  support. 

With  respect  to  my  own  division,  I  did  have  Rex  Collings,  but 
he  was  still  quite  inexperienced.   He  had  never  tried  any  cases, 
for  example.   One  of  the  reasons  he  came  back  with  me  was  my 
assurance  that  in  due  course  I  would  make  it  possible  for  him  to 
try  cases.   I  don't  remember  to  what  section  I  assigned  him  when  he 
was  first  there.   But  I  inherited  a  first  assistant,  and  a  second 


334 


Olney:    assistant,  and  section  chiefs  of  various  sections.   I  wasn't  very 
favorably  impressed,  to  be  frank  about  it,  although  there  was 
nothing  against  these  men. 

Stein:   What  didn't  impress  you? 

Olney:   Oh,  just  their  manner  and  general  appearance  of  capability.   I 

doubted  that  they  were  very  capable,  but  maybe  they  were  more  so 
than  I  thought.   But  very  quickly  I  had  this  extraordinary  exper 
ience  with  a  case  that  involved  Congressman  Bramblett. 


The  Congressman  Bramblett  Case 

Olney:   Congressman  Bramblett  was  a  Republican  from  Monterey  County,  California 
He  had  gotten  into  the  newspapers,  I  think,  before  the  election. 
Drew  Pearson  had  published  stories  about  him.   The  gist  of  it  was 
that  Bramblett  had  put  a  number  of  different  people  on  his  congres 
sional  payroll  and  then  had  required  that  they  give  him  part  of 
their  salaries . 

Stein:   So  he  was  receiving  kickbacks? 

Olney:   Yes,  that  was  the  accusation.   It  had  been  in  the  newspapers.   I 
had  not  been  in  the  office  very  long,  and  I  asked  some  questions 
about  the  Bramblett  case  and  found  that  it  was  indeed  pending  there 
in  the  criminal  division.   I  talked  with  the  chief  of  the  section 
which  had  jurisdiction  and  he  told  me  that  they  had  completed  review 
of  the  reports — the  investigation  was  complete — and  had  recommended 
against  prosecution.   They  didn't  think  they  had  a  case. 

I  asked  to  see  the  file  and  it  was  sent  in.   I  read  the  file 
myself  from  beginning  to  end.   I  was  no  expert  in  the  federal 
criminal  law.   I  had  never  tried  cases  in  federal  court — my  exper 
ience  had  been  in  the  state  courts — and  I  was  none  too  familiar 
with  the  federal  criminal  code.   But  as  I  read  that  file  it  seemed 
to  me  that  there  was  a  case  there.   I  thought  it  was  a  provable, 
presentable  case,  but  they  had  recommended  against  it.   The 
memorandum  which  was  presented  for  my  signature  to  close  out  the 
case  had  been  endorsed  first  by  the  man  whose  immediate  job  it  was 
to  review  all  the  reports  and  come  to  a  conclusion,  and  then  the 
chief  of  his  section  had  reviewed  it.   Then  my  two  assistants  both 
had  reviewed  it  and  both  of  them  had  initialed  it,  recommending 
that  the  case  be  closed. 


335 


Olney:   Well,  I  read  it  and  then  returned  the  file  and  had  it  sent  back  to 
file,  but  I  did  not  close  the  case  out.   I  did  not  initial  it.   I 
just  sent  it  back  to  the  files  for  the  time  being,  because  I  didn't 
want  it  hanging  around  on  my  desk. 

A  little  later  I  got  hold  of  Rex  Collings  and  asked  him  to  take 
out  the  file — I  guess  I  handed  him  the  file,  as  a  matter  of  fact — 
and  told  him  not  to  take  a  look  at  the  review  that  had  been  made  in 
the  department,  by  the  department  lawyers.   I  wanted  him  to  read  the 
reports  and  to  read  the  statutes  and  to  give  me  a  completely  independ 
ent  view  as  to  whether  he  thought  there  was  a  case  there  or  not, 
which  he  did. 

In  due  course  he  came  in  and  said,  "I  don't  understand  what  the 
question  is.   Of  course,  there's  a  case.  What's  the  problem?" 

I  said,  "It's  been  reviewed  here  in  the  criminal  division,  and 
they  say  there's  no  case.   They're  recommending  that  we  don't 
prosecute." 

"Well,"  he  said,  "can  I  look  at  their  memoranda  now?"  So  I  let 

him  do  that.   He  said,  "It  doesn't  convince  me.   I  think  they're 

wrong.   I  think  they're  mistaken.  This  is  clearly  a  legitimate 
case." 

That  was  the  time  when  I  sent  the  file  back  to  be  filed,  but 
unendorsed.   I  thought  about  it  for  a  time.   After  about  a  week,  I 
asked  for  the  file  again.   It  was  sent  to  me  and  I  looked  it  over — 
I'm  wrong  about  that — I  asked  Rex  to  get  it  out.   Rex  looked  it 
over  and  came  into  my  office  in  a  great  state  of  excitement.   He 
said,  "There's  a  paper  in  that  file  that  was  not  there  when  I  read 
that  case,  and  it  was  not  there  when  you  read  it."  He  said,  "Look 
at  it." 

Here  it  was.   This  was  an  explicit  order,  signed  by  the  attorney 
general,  directing  that  case  be  presented  to  the  grand  jury.   It  was 
signed  by  Attorney  General  McGranery,  on  the  nineteenth  of  January, 
the  very  day  that  he  left  office.   Now,  I  know  that  paper  was  not 
in  the  file  when  I  saw  it,  and  it  wasn't  in  there  when  Rex  saw  it. 
But  there  it  was,  a  flat  order.   And  this  closing  memorandum  had 
been  initialed  on  dates  since  then. 

Well,  I  thought  about  that  for  a  while,  and  eventually  I  made  up 
my  mind  that  somebody  was  trying  to  fix  me  up,  to  get  that  case 
closed  out  and  then  make  a  big  stink  about  it,  and  find  out  that 
I'd  closed  that  case  out  notwithstanding  a  recommendation  or  an 
order  from  a  previous  Democratic  attorney  general  that  we  prosecute 
it.   This  man  [Bramblett]  was  a  Republican. 


336 


Olney:   I  called  in  all  four  of  the  men  who  had  initialed  that  closing 

memorandum — the  two  assistants,  the  chief  of  the  section,  and  the 
man  who  had  reviewed  the  case  in  the  first  place — and  told  them  at 
the  outset  that  I  was  going  to  have  to  take  an  action  that  might 
well  be  quite  unjust  to  three  out  of  the  four  of  them.   But  I  did 
not  know  who  was  responsible  for  this.   I  couldn't  tell  which  one 
it  was,  but  I  knew  it  was  one  of  the  four.   I  went  over  what  had 
happened.   And  I  said,  "This  is  a  frame-up.   Somebody  is-  trying  to 
do  this.   Somebody  pulled  that  sheet  out  of  the  file,  knowing  that 
we  were  going  to  read  the  file,  so  that  we  wouldn't  see  McGranery's 
order,  and  then  put  the  order  back  in.   Obviously,  I  can't  live  in 
peace  and  quiet  if  I  think  I  have  somebody  like  that  around  here. 
You  gentlemen  are  just  going  to  have  to  look  for  employment  else 
where.   You  have  all  initialed  the  recommendation  not  to  prosecute 
and  you  thereby  have  made  yourselves  responsible.   I  can't  have  any 
of  you." 

Well,  there  was  an  awful  to-do  about  it.   But  I  just  wouldn't 
recede  from  the  position,  and  they  all  eventually  left  without  any 
noise  or  problem.   I  had  four  vacancies  as  a  result. 


Personnel 


Olney:   By  that  time,  I  had  learned  to  my  astonishment  that  the  criminal 
division  also  included  internal  security  work,  about  which  I  knew 
next  to  nothing,  and  civil  rights,  about  which  I  knew  even  less. 

The  internal  security  work  bothered  me  very  much,  because  I 
knew  that  it  was  very  important  to  have  a  good  working  relationship 
with  the  FBI  on  those  cases.   I  couldn't  have  somebody  who  was  a 
complete  stranger  to  them.   So  I  went  in  to  see  Mr.  Hoover  and  told 
him  I  had  a  vacancy  as  a  first  assistant  and  I  wanted  somebody  who 
had  a  really  good  background  in  internal  security  work.   Did  he 
know  any  lawyers  that  fitted  that  bill?  He  said  he  did,  and  he 
gave  me  four  or  five  names.   I  looked  them  over,  and  Walter  Yagley 
was  the  one  that  seemed  to  me  to  be  best  qualified.   I  called  him 
up  and  had  him  come  in  and  we  had  a  talk.   I  checked  out  on  his 
references,  of  course,  and  concluded  that  he  would  be  good,  so  I 
appointed  him.  He  became  my  first  assistant,  and  it  was  a  good 
appointment. 

Then  I  needed  somebody  else  and  I  persuaded  Alan  Lindsay  to 
come  East.   He  became  the  second  assistant,  and  a  more  faithful, 
loyal,  energetic  assistant  no  one  ever  had.   He  was  tops. 


337 


Olney:   Then  we  had  another  interesting  experience  with  personnel  in  the 
office.   Herbert  Brownell  thought  that  each  assistant  ought  to 
bring  his  own  stenographer,  if  possible,  because  the  place  was 
notorious  for  leaks  and  things  of  that  kind.   He  had  the  idea  that 
it  was  secretaries  that  might  well  do  a  lot  of  talking  outside  of 
shop.   So  I  did  my  best  to  recruit  secretaries  who  had  worked  for 
me  here  on  the  coast,  and  there  were  quite  a  few  of  them.   I 
couldn't  persuade  a  one  of  them.   [laughter]   They  just  weren't 
interested  in  going  three  thousand  miles  and  living  in  Washington. 

Of  the  secretaries  that  I  inherited,  there  was  a  number-one  and 
a  number-two  girl.   Both  girls  were  young.   The  number-one  girl  was 
very  young,  extremely  young.   Her  name  was  Margaret  A.  Bailey,  but 
she  was  known  as  Marty.   I  don't  recall  now  how  it  was  that  she 
happened  to  be  in  that  number-one  position.   She  hadn't  had  it  long; 
she  hadn't  had  anything  very  long.   She  had  been  in  the  division 
for  enough  years  so  that  she  knew  everybody  and  knew  what  was  going 
on.   She'd  expected  to  be  replaced,  but  I  couldn't  find  anybody  to 
replace  her. 

The  longer  I  kept  her,  the  better  satisfied  I  was  with  her.  Her 
work  was  excellent  from  the  start;  I  never  had  any  complaint  about 
that.   I  began  to  have  very  great  confidence  in  her  discretion, 
because  she  had  worked  for  two  or  three  of  my  predecessors — among 
whom  was  T.  Lamar  Caudle,  for  example — who  were  the  subjects  of 
investigation  and  eventual  prosecution.   She  was  aware  of  these 
activities,  but:  never  once  did  Marty  ever  say  one  single  word  about 
them  or  about  their  work  or  make  any  comment.   I  concluded  that  if 
she  wouldn't  talk  to  me  about  them,  she  wasn't  going  to  talk  about 
me  to  anybody  else.   So  I  kept  her  as  long  as  she  wanted  to  stay, 
which  was  quite  a  few  years.   Then  she  up  and  got  married. 

My  number-two  girl  was  from  North  Carolina,  and  she  hadn't  been 
there  for  very  long.   She  really  was  a  hillbilly.   I  used  to  ask  her 
if  she'd  ever  worn  shoes  before  she  came  to  Washington.   [laughter] 

I  couldn't  understand  her.   She  talked  a  language  that,  to  me, 
was  almost  incomprehensible.   And,  to  my  disgust,  I  found  that  she 
couldn't  understand  me.   She  didn't  think  I  could  speak  English, 
[laughter]   We  used  to  get  into  gales  of  laughter  at  one  another 
because  we  would  have  an  exchange  and  it  would  be  perfectly  plain 
that  neither  of  us  understood  the  other.   But  we  got  used  to  each 
other  before  long,  and  so  I  could  understand  her  and  she  could  under 
stand  me,  and  she  turned  out  to  be  a  very  fine  secretary  indeed. 

All  the  years  I  was  in  Washington,  I  had  Washington  secretaries. 
I  have  never  seen  a  collection  of  better  professionals  than  that 
group.   They  were  very  capable  and  totally  reliable.  While 


338 


Olney:   Washington  is  notorious  as  a  place  for  gossip  and  things  of  this 

kind,  in  my  day  at  least,  the  leaks  were  not  coming  from  secretaries 
at  all.   And,  to  the  best  of  my  belief,  they  don't  now.   So  I  was 
never  able  to  get  any  California  secretary,  and  I  used  the  ones  I 
found  there. 


The  Bramblett  Case  Concluded 


Stein:   Were  you  going  to  say  anything  more  about  the  Bramblett  case? 

Olney:   Yes.  We  then  had  a  complete  new  review  made  of  the  case  and  decided 
that  it  should  be  presented  to  the  grand  jury.   It  was  and  an  indict 
ment  was  returned.   The  case  was  tried  and  Bramblett  was  convicted. 
It  went  to  the  Supreme  Court  on  appeal  and  it  was  affirmed,  and  he 
served  his  term.   Of  course,  he  lost  his  position  in  the  Congress. 

It  also  had  a  bearing  on  my  dealings  with  Drew  Pearson.  When  I 
was  with  the  crime  commission,  the  newspapers  were  always  hanging 
around  and  trying  to  get  stories.   The  policy  that  I  always  followed 
with  them  was  to  treat  all  newspapermen  alike.   I  did  not  have 
private  conferences  with  different  reporters.   I  called  them  all  in 
and  told  them  all  the  same  thing  and  answered  the  same  questions  all 
at  once,  so  that  nobody  got  scooped.   And  I  would  try  to  arrange 
these  conferences  at  different  times  of  day  so  that  sometimes  it 
would  be  the  morning  paper,  sometimes  it  would  be  the  evening  paper 
that  would  get  the  stories  first.   They  knew  I  tried  to  do  this 
and  were  quite  appreciative  of  it.   But  there  was  one  exception  that 
I  always  made  and  that  was:  if  a  newspaperman  came  to  us  and  gave  us 
a  story  or  a  substantial  lead  from  which  a  case  really  developed,  I 
always  felt  that  he  was  entitled  to  the  first  break  on  that  story. 
I  used  to  tell  them,  "Give  us  a  story  and  that's  the  way  it'll  be 
treated.  We  will  see  that  you  get  the  first  shot  at  it." 

Well,  Pearson  was  the  one  that  blew  the  whistle  on  Bramblett. 
This  didn't  come  from  anybody  else.   This  thing  had  been  cooking 
around  and  he'd  almost  forgotten  about  it.  Well,  when  we  decided 
that  we  had  a  case,  and  there  was  going  to  be  an  indictment  returned, 
I  called  him  up  and  told  him  that  I  had  a  story  if  he'd  care  to  drop 
in,  which  he  did.   I  said,  "The  reason  I'm  telling  you  this  is 
because  this  originated  with  you,  and  I've  always  gone  on  this 
policy,  that  if  you  start  a  story,  you're  entitled  to  finish  it. 
We  have  gone  into  the  Bramblett  matter  thoroughly  and  there'll  be 
an  indictment  returned.  We're  going  to  go  ahead  and  try  it.   I 
thought  you  ought  to  know  it." 


339 


Olney:   Well,  he  expressed  his  appreciation  for  it.   He  said,  "You  know, 
there's  something  funny  about  that  case.   There's  an  awful  lot  of 
talk  going  on  down  in  Democratic  party  headquarters  about  that  case. 
Something  happened.   They  were  positive  that  you  were  not  going  to 
prosecute  that  case.   They  were  positive  you  weren't,  and  they  had 
told  me  that.   I  was  just  sort  of  waiting  to  see  what  was  going  to 
happen.   But  then  something  happened,  and  they  got  into  an  awful 
uproar." 

Well,  I  didn't  tell  him  about  this  sheet  being  taken  out  and  put 
back  in  the  file,  but  I  have  always  thought  there  was  a  connection. 
Anyway,  that  was  the  story  of  the  Bramblett  case  and  how  I  got  room 
to  appoint  some  of  my  own  people  in  the  criminal  division. 

Stein:   Have  you  seen  the  account  of  the  Bramblett  affair  in  Drew  Pearson's 
diaries*  that  have  just  come  out? 

Olney:   No,  I  haven't. 

Stein:   He  says,  among  other  things,  that  there  was  a  rumor  going  around 
that  Richard  Nixon  was  going  to  try  to  stop  the  prosecution,  and 
that  there  was  a  political  war  going  on  in  California  between  the 
Nixon  and  the  Warren  forces  about  whether  the  case  was  going  to  be 
prosecuted. 

Olney:   I  never  heard  of  that.   I  don't  believe  that  there's  the  slightest 
truth  in  that.  Well,  I  won't  say  that  there  might  not  have  been 
some  such  rumor  going  around  in  Washington,  but  I  don't  think — 

Stein:   He  also  says  that  there  was  another  paper  discovered  in  the  file 
that  was  a  memo  from  a  Washington  attorney  purporting  to  be  a 
friend  of  yours  interceding  for  Bramblett. 

Olney:   That's  true.   That's  true.   Now,  that  paper  was  a  letter  that  was 
in  the  file  and  it  was  written  by  Edward  Bennett  Williams,  who,  at 
that  time,  wasn't  very  well  known.   He's  now,  I  suppose,  the  best- 
known  criminal  lawyer  in  Washington.   It  was  a  letter,  signed  by 
him,  that  was  received  after  my  appointment  was  announced  and 
before  we  took  office,  interceding  on  Bramblett 's  behalf,  and 
making  some  mention  that  he  was  a  friend  of  mine.  Well,  I  had 
never  seen  the  man  in  my  life.   He  was  no  friend  of  mine  at  all. 


*Tyler  Abell,  ed.,  Drew  Pearson:  Diaries  1949-1959  (New  York, 
1974)  . 


340 


Olney:   I  was  so  put  out  about  that,  and  so  leery  of  a  man  who  would  do  that, 
that  I  would  never  permit  Williams  in  my  office.   He  never  came  into 
my  office,  ever.   I  wouldn't  let  him  in  the  place,  nor  Murray 
Chotiner;  I  wouldn't  let  him  in  the  place  either,  and  neither  would 
Bill  Rogers. 

Stein:   Why?  What  had  Chotiner  done? 

Olney:   Well,  Chotiner  was  nothing  but  a  two-bit  crook.   He  was  a  very  close 
associate  of  Fred  Howser  and  those  racketeers  in  Southern  California, 
and  had  been  right  along.   He  was  all  mixed  up  in  politics.   He'd 
gotten  on  the  vice-president's  train.   Bill  Rogers  had  some  very 
unpleasant  experience  with  him.   I  don't  remember  what. 

It  was  shortly  after  we  took  office  that  we  heard  that  Murray 
Chotiner  was  running  around  making  representations  that  he  could 
square  cases.   Bill  Rogers  put  out  a  memorandum  to  every  assistant 
in  the  department  that  Murray  Chotiner  was  not  to  be  allowed  in  the 
place,  not  to  let  him  come  into  your  office,  or  talk  to  him.   That's 
the  way  he  was  regarded 

[tape  recorder  off  while  Mr.  Olney  reads  relevant  portions  of  Drew 
Pearson's  Diaries.] 

Olney:   Well,  our  accounts  of  this  thing  are  reasonably  similar. 
Where  are  we  now? 


The  Investigation  of  Tom  Clark 
Stein:   You  mentioned  in  your  outline  the  Tom  Clark  investigation. 


Olney:   Oh,  yes.   To  my  surprise,  I  discovered  that  in  the  general  crimes 

section  they  had  a  very  extensive  investigation  of  Tom  Clark  under 
way.   This  goes  back  to  the  days  when  he  was  attorney  general  and 
there  had  been  a  number  of  ringleaders  of  what  was  known  as  the 
Capone  mob  who  had  been  convicted  and  then  paroled.   There  was  a 
great  scandal  about  the  parole  of  some  of  those  Capone  mobsters. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  that  incident  was  mentioned  in  one  of  our 
California  crime  commission  reports.   I  don't  remember  now  exactly 
what  it  was,  but  I  know  that  we  had  mentioned  it  and  it  was  a 
notorious  affair. 

Well,  I  found  out  that  when  McGranery  had  become  attorney  general 
in  August  of  '53,  he  had  instituted  this  investigation  of  Tom  Clark 
on  the  circumstances  of  this  parole.   The  parole  board  was  in  the 


341 


Olney:   Department  of  Justice  and  they  had  two  lawyers  working  on  that  case. 
I  went  into  the  room  and  talked  with  them  about  the  case.   There 
were  stacks  of  FBI  reports .   I  would  have  thought  that  they  were 
about  four  feet  high.   They  said  that  the  investigation  wasn't  con 
cluded,  so  I  said,  "Without  going  any  further,  would  you  write  me  a 
summary  of  what  you  have  to  date:  what  the  allegations  are,  and 
what,  roughly,  you  think  is  shown  by  the  reports,  and  the  general 
direction  that  you  think  further  investigation  might  go." 

They  did  summarize  the  thing  for  me.   I  concluded  that  it  was 
just  a  mare's  nest,  and  that  there  was  nothing  worth  investigating. 
They  were  going  round  and  round;  there  were  no  solid  allegations 
for  inquiry.   Clark's  connection  with  the  parole  was  not  close;  it 
was  quite  remote.   There  was  nothing  solid  to  investigate.   So  I 
closed  the  case  out.   I  mention  this  because  there  was  this  very 
considerable  number  of  cases  that  had  been  started  by  Attorney 
General  McGranery,  some  of  which  seemed  to  have  merit  and  some  of 
which  didn't,  which  were  underway  when  we  got  there.   And  that  was 
one  of  them  that  I  closed  out. 

It  was  always  a  difficult  thing  for  me  to  close  out  a  case  with 
out  there  being  very  solid  reasons  for  doing  it.   I  felt  I  had  to 
have  as  solid  grounds  for  stopping  the  investigation  as  I  would  have 
for  returning  an  indictment.   If  I  didn't,  those  things  always  get 
out  and  I  knew  that  I  might  well  be  called  to  account  somewhere  for 
the  action  taken.   I  felt  that  I  simply  had  to  have  solid  ground  for 
every  one.   So,  with  some  of  these  better-known  defendants  we  had 
it  was  not  an  easy  thing  to  close  them  out.   But  with  this  one  I 
did. 


Internal  Security  Work 


Budget  Problems 

Olney:   Perhaps  now  we  might  go  to  the  internal  security  matters? 

Stein:   Do  you  want  to  do  that  first,  or  your  initial  experiences  with  the 
budget? 

Olney:   Oh,  yes.  Well,  the  two  things  fit  together  pretty  well. 

It  seems  to  me  it  was  about  the  week  after  I  was  sworn  in  that 
the  hearings  on  the  budget  came  up.   I  found  that  I  was  supposed  to 
appear  before  the  subcommittee  of  the  House  Appropriations  Committee 
to  justify  the  appropriations  for  the  criminal  division.   The  chair 
man  of  that  subcommittee  was  John  Rooney  of  New  York. 


342 


Olney:   Well,  I  appeared,  and  we  had  an  elaborate  budget.   The  budget  had 
been  prepared,  of  course,  by  the  administrative  section  in  my 
division.   The  committee  knew  that  I  was  not  personally  familiar 
with  it,  and  they  were  very  kind  and  reasonable  in  their  treatment 
of  me  at  that  particular  hearing.   Each  of  the  sections  of  the 
criminal  division  had  its  own  activities  and  the  supporting 
material  for  the  budget  described  what  the  activities  in  the  past 
year  of  the  sections  had  been,  how  many  cases  they'd  handled,  how 
many  lawyers  they  had,  what  they  expected  in  the  coming  year,  how 
much  money  they  were  likely  to  need,  and  so  forth. 

In  presenting  this,  I  learned  for  the  first  time  that  I  had  an 
extraordinary  number  of  lawyers  engaged  in  internal  security  work. 
It  seems  to  me  that  there  were  more  lawyers  in  that  section  than  in 
the  rest  of  the  division  taken  altogether.   They  had  reported  a 
fantastic  number  of  cases  that  were  serious.   [refers  to  the  Annual 
Report  of  the  Attorney  General  of  the  United  States,  1953]   The 
statement  was  that  during  the  fiscal  year  they  had  received  and 
processed  18,000  new  cases  involving  violations  of  the  laws  relating 
to  internal  security,  as  well  as  23,116  new  cases  of  reported  viola 
tions  of  the  selective  service  law.  Well,  the  selective  service 
cases  didn't  bother  me  much,  but  those  18,000  internal  security 
section  cases  certainly  did,  because  I  wasn't  aware  of  any  such 
large  number  of  cases. 

Well,  when  I  made  inquiry  after  the  hearings,  when  I  first  learned 
of  this,  I  found  the  answer  to  it  was  in  the  way  that  they  defined  a 
case.   I  had  supposed  that  when  they  were  talking  about  cases  they 
meant  either  cases  that  were  actually  in  court  or  cases  that  were 
under  preparation  or  investigation  with  an  idea  of  presenting  them 
to  court.   But  not  so.   They  were  counting  as  cases  every  separate 
matter  that  came  to  the  attention  of  the  section,  whether  it  was 
by  casual  correspondence  or  a  phone  call  or  whatnot.   And  this  was, 
of  course,  building  up  a  statistical  total  which  made  it  possible  to 
put  out  a  figure  like  that  for  appropriation  purposes.   It  also,  of 
course,  brought  to  my  attention  the  very  large  number  of  lawyers  in 
that  section.   I  might  say  that  when  I  took  the  position,  I  did  not 
realize  that  these  cases,  or  at  least  so  many  of  them,  would  be  in 
my  division.   I  hadn't  really  thought  about  it. 

So  I  began  making  inquiries  into  what  these  lawyers  were  doing. 
I  found  that  they  were  reviewing  FBI  reports  on  individuals,  evalu 
ating  the  reports,  and  putting  these  individuals'  names  on  lists 
according  to  whether  they  felt  they  were  more  or  less  security 
risks  and  dangerous . 

Well,  learning  this  from  the  work,  I  also  learned  from  sitting 
around  the  luncheon  table  with  Mr.  Hoover  and  Mr.  [James]  Bennett 
that  the  civil  defense  program — and  this  is  Harry  Truman's  civil 


343 


Olney:   defense  program  we're  talking  about — included  planning  in  case  of 
attack  not  merely  for  shelters  for  people  to  pop  into,  but  elim 
inating  all  possible  domestic  threats  and  enemies.   This  had  been 
carried  out  to  the  extent  of  making  definite  plans  in  a  state  of 
emergency  for  actually  picking  up  suspected  people  and  putting  them 
into  camps.   Hoover  and  Bennett  would  discuss  where  these  camps 
would  be  and  how  many  could  they  handle  at  various  places . 

Mr.  Bennett — who  took  a  very  dim  view  of  the  whole  program,  I 
might  say — was  having  to  consider  rehabilitating  old  prisoner  of  war 
camps  that  had  been  used  in  World  War  I.  Well,  the  people  they  were 
going  to  put  in  there  were  the  people  who  were  on  these  lists  that 
the  lawyers  in  my  division  were  evaluating. 

Stein:    Could  I  interrupt  a  moment?   I  know  the  McCarran  Act  in  1950 

authorized  the  establishment  of  internment  camps,  but  were  these 
camps  even  before  that? 

Olney:   Oh,  no,  no.  We're  talking  about  1954,  after  the  McCarran  Act  was 

passed.   Yes,  I  think  it  authorized  something  like  that,  but  I  never 
believed  that  there  was  anything  like  this  going  on. 

What  was  occurring  was  that  the  FBI  would  get  information  here, 
there,  and  the  other  place,  and  some  of  the  information  would  suggest 
that  the  person  might  be  a  possible  security  risk.  Maybe  he  belonged 
to  an  organization  that  was  supposed  to  be  made  up  of  "baddies,"  or 
maybe  his  sister-in-law  did,  or  something  like  that.   And  they  would 
make  an  investigation  and  prepare  a  report.   Now,  Mr.  Hoover  always 
took  the  position  that  the  Bureau  would  never  evaluate  those  reports 
or  any  reports,  that  that  was  a  job  for  the  lawyers.   The  Bureau 
would  get  information,  but  it  was  up  to  the  lawyers  to  decide  if  it 
meant  anything  or  not  and  what  the  consequences  should  be.   The 
lawyers  who  had  to  do  this  were  the  ones  in  the  internal  security 
section  of  the  criminal  division. 

And  here  were  these  lawyers  sitting  there,  reviewing  reports  and 
trying  to  evaluate  them,  making  decisions  as  to  whether  this  name 
should  go  on  the  "Most  Dangerous"  list  or  the  "Least  Dangerous"  list 
or  something,  or  whether  it  shouldn't  go  on  any  list  at  all.   The 
lists  were  huge. 

At  that  time,  it's  only  fair  to  recall,  we  were  in  the  Korean 
War.   Eisenhower  had  promised  to  make  a  trip  to  Korea  to  try  to 
bring  the  fighting  to  an  end.   The  shooting  was  still  going  on.   He 
did  make  the  trip.   It  took  a  long  time  to  get  it  to  an  end.   There 
was  always  apprehension  of  not  only  intervention  by  the  Chinese, 
as  there  was  in  Korea  itself,  but  by  the  Russians  also.   There  were 
all  sorts  of  plans  to  meet  a  possible  nuclear  attack,  civil  defense 
plans  that  we  were  going  through,  so  it  was  not  so  extraordinary 


344 


Olney:    that  people  like  the  Bureau,  who  were  charged  with  that  responsi 
bility,  were  thinking  in  terms  of  what  were  they  going  to  do  about 
picking  up  potential  enemies  in  the  event  of  an  attack.   But  I 
didn't  like  to  see  all  this  responsibility  thrown  on  the  lawyers  in 
my  division  who  were  not  equipped  to  evaluate  things  like  this. 

Stein:   About  how  many  names  were  on  these  lists? 
Olney:    I  don't  know,  but  they  ran  into  thousands. 

I  didn't  feel  in  a  position  to  challenge  the  program  that  was 
going  on.   I  thought  it  was  useless,  wasteful,  and  was  being  carried 
to  an  unnecessary  extreme.   So  what  I  did  was  to  discourage  the 
program  whenever  the  opportunity  arose.  When  we  would  get  vacancies— 
and  there  was  always  a  considerable  turnover  of  lawyers  in  that  sec 
tion,  as  you  can  imagine;  they  couldn't  stand  sitting  there  just 
evaluating  these  things  for  very  long — I  gave  instructions  not  to 
fill  the  vacancies.   And  then  as  many  as  possible  of  the  good  lawyers 
that  we  had  in  there,  we  transferred  to  other  sections  where  their 
services  were  of  some  use.   So  the  number  of  persons  actually  working 
on  those  cases  became  fewer  and  fewer.  Although  the  reports  kept 
coming  in,  my  instructions  were  to  just  let  them  come  and  let  them 
stack  up.   And  that's  what  we  did. 

I  feel  very  sure  that  it  wouldn't  take  long  for  the  FBI  to  figure 
out  what  was  happening.   But  they  didn't  make  an  issue  of  it.   It 
was  never  brought  up  with  me.   I  know  that  they  were  very,  very  glad 
when,  about  after  a  year  or  so,  the  internal  security  work  was  set 
up  in  a  brand  new  division,  with  a  new  assistant  in  charge, 
[laughter] 

Incidentally,  an  amusing  thing  happened,  speaking  of  the  budget 
and  the  statistics.  While  I  still  had  the  internal  security  work 
and  had  found  this  lack  of  definition  of  a  case,  I  decided  we  had 
better  have  a  definition  of  a  case  and  make  it  run  clear  across  all 
the  sections  in  the  criminal  division.  We  defined  a  case  as  meaning 
a  proceeding  either  in  court  or  one  where  court  proceedings  were 
contemplated,  and  everything  else  was  counted  as  "matters."  It 
meant  that  the  next  time  the  budget  was  presented,  we  had  a  tremen 
dous  reduction  in  the  number  of  cases  reported  for  the  internal 
security  section,  and  this  had  to  be  explained  to  the  Appropriations 
Committee  subcommittee. 

Stein:   How  did  they  take  that? 

Olney:   Well,  they  took  it  very  well,  asked  no  real  questions  about  it,  and 
accepted  my  explanation,  the  reason  being  that  the  internal  security 
work  was  so  strongly  supported  by  the  FBI,  and  Mr.  Rooney,  the  sub 
committee  chairman,  was  a  very,  very  strong  supporter  of  the  Bureau. 
So,  he  was  not  about  to  cut  down  the  appropriation  for  internal 
security  work,  no  matter  what  we  reported. 


345 


Olney:   When  the  internal  security  division  was  created — that  was  on  July  9, 
1954 — and  it  absorbed,  of  course,  all  the  work  that  had  been  in  the 
criminal  division,  they  reported,  to  my  amusement,  that  at  the 
beginning  of  the  fiscal  year  1955  there  were  50,460  office  cases 
pending  in  the  internal  security  division  foreign  agents'  registra 
tion  section.   The  new  cases  received  during  the  year  totaled 
13,228,  or  728  less  than  the  previous  year,  the  number  of  cases 
handled  totaling  63,688  cases,  representing  an  increase  of  7,169. 
[laughter]  Well,  there  just  weren't  that  many  subversives  in  the 
country.   Those  were  "matters"  and  those  figures  were  decorations 
for  Appropriations  Committee  hearings. 

Stein:   I  imagine  that  if  that  were  true,  there'd  be  a  subversive  behind 
every  bush. 

Olney:    I  should  say. 

Stein:   I  just  have  one  more  question  about  the  budget.   You  mentioned  when 

you  spoke  to  Mort  Schwartz  and  Mrs.  Fry  that  you  brought  John  Airhart 
in  to  help  you  with  the  budget,  and  that  he  was  an  enormous  help.   I 
wondered  if  you  could  tell  me  a  little  bit  about  what  he  did. 

Olney:   Well,  yes,  indeed,  I  can.   The  chief  of  the  administrative  section 
whom  I  inherited  walked  in  on  me  one  day  and  told  me,  "Goodbye,"  to 
my  amazement.   He  was  retiring.   I  didn't  even  know  that  he  was 
eligible.   But  he  retired  and  said  he  wouldn't  be  there  next  week. 
Came  in  on  a  Friday — I  never  saw  him  again. 

Stein:   Nothing  like  short  notice! 

Olney:    So  I  had  to  get  an  administrative  man.   I  made  inquiry  around  and 
Walter  Yagley  was  helpful  to  me  on  that.   He  told  me  about  John 
Airhart,  who  was  not  a  lawyer,  but  he  had  been  an  administrative  man 
in  the  RFC  [Reconstruction  Finance  Corporation] .   He  had  handled  all 
the  administrative  work  for  the  legal  staff  of  the  RFC,  which  was  a 
very  large  staff  indeed,  with  the  usual  problems  of  lawyers.   I  got 
in  touch  with  Airhart.   The  RFC  was  being  reduced  to  next  to  nothing. 

He  came  with  us,  and  I  put  him  in  charge  of  the  administrative 
section  and  it  was  a  very,  very  good  choice  indeed.   He  was  a  true 
professional.   He  had  had  years  of  experience  with  lawyers  and  knew 
that  they  were  professional  men,  and  that  you  had  to  handle  them 
differently  than  you  do  most  personnel.   He  knew  all  about  budgets. 
He  had  prepared  many  of  them.   And  he  knew  what  the  committees 
expected. 

John  always  prepared  our  budget  in  such  a  way  that  there  was 
always  room  for  the  committee  to  cut.  When  we  would  talk  with  the 
committee  members  outside  of  hearings,  they  would  insist  on  emphasiz 
ing  the  fact  that  the  object  of  the  committee  was  to  cut  the  budget 


346 


Olney:   as  much  as  to  appropriate  money.   They  expected  us  to  have  something 
in  there  that  they  could  cut.   If  we  didn't  have  something  in  there 
that  they  could  cut,  we'd  get  cut  anyhow.   I  could  never  see  where 
it  was,  but  John  always  had  room  in  there  so  they  could  cut  us  and 
we  could  still  go  ahead. 

Without  him  I  don't  know  what  I  would  have  done,  because  I'm  not 
a  budget  man  and  couldn't  have  put  the  budget  together  or  hoped  to 
justify  it  without  his  skillful  preparation. 

Stein:   That  sounds  like  quite  a  political  game  to  know  how  much  to  add  on 
that  can  be  cut  out  that  will  look  good. 

Olney:   Just  like  musical  chairs.   It  is  a  game.   I  always  detested  it. 
Budget  hearings  are  the  things  that  I  liked  least  about  life  in 
Washington,  in  large  part  because  they  are  so  dishonest.   It's 
just  fakery  to  a  large  extent. 

The  usual  thing  is  to  have  the  hearing  and  then  afterwards  to 
give  the  committee  clerk  a  list  of  the  things  that  can  be  cut  with 
out  doing  any  damage.  And  that's  what's  done.   The  thing  is  that 
nobody  gets  fooled  by  that  excepting  the  public.   But  that's  the 
way  Mr.  Rooney  always  ran  it,  and  we  always  had  him  all  the  time  I 
was  in  the  Department  of  Justice.   I  also  had  to  appear  before  the 
same  subcommittee  including  Mr.  Rooney  all  the  time  I  was  director 
of  the  administrative  office  of  the  courts.   So  it  was  simply  the 
same  old  story  year  after  year. 

Stein:   When  was  the  internal  security  division  made  a  separate  division? 

Olney:   Well,  the  internal  security  section  of  the  criminal  division  became 
a  separate  division  with  an  assistant  attorney  general  in  charge  of 
it  in,  I  believe,  1954.   I  can  tell  you  exactly  if  my  recollection 
here  is  correct.   [refers  to  the  Annual  Report  of  the  Attorney 
General  of  the  United  States,  1955] 

Yes,  it  was  created  as  a  new  division  on  July  9,  1954.   It 
absorbed  all  the  functions  of  the  department  relating  to  internal 
security  other  than  those  assigned  to  the  Federal  Bureau  of  Investi 
gation  and  the  Immigration  and  Naturalization  Service.   The  entire 
personnel  of  the  internal  security  section  of  the  criminal  division, 
together  with  all  the  duties  and  responsibilities  assigned  to  that 
section,  were  transferred  to  the  new  division. 

Stein:   So  after  that  you  weren't  directly  concerned  yourself  with  internal 
security. 

Olney:   No. 


347 


Stein:   One  of  the  other  things  I  was  wondering  was,  when  you  decided  to 

reduce  the  amount  of  activity  of  the  criminal  division  on  the  lists 
of  subversives,  the  work  of  assessing  the  FBI  reports  to  see  who 
belonged  on  which  lists,  was  there  any  opposition  within  the 
department  to  what  you  did? 

Olney:   No,  there  was  none.   I  didn't  have  occasion  to  consult  with  anybody 
about  it  because  we  needed  the  men  and  we  needed  the  positions  in 
other  sections  in  the  division.   So  I  just  went  ahead  and  trans 
ferred  those  positions  to  other  sections  when  vacancies  would  occur 
and  as  they  were  needed,  and  I  just  never  mentioned  the  fact  that 
the  net  effect  was  to  reduce  the  number  of  people  in  the  section. 
I  did  not  consult  with  Mr.  Brownell,  although  I  think  it  is  likely 
that  he  knew  what  I  was  doing  and  why.   I  did  not  consult  him 
because  I  felt  that  if  there  was  trouble,  I  should  bear  the  onus. 
I  was  prepared  to  take  the  blame  and  did  not  want  to  involve  him  if 
it  could  be  avoided. 

Now,  I  think  we've  covered  the  budget,  haven't  we? 
Stein:   Yes,  I  think  so.   Now  we  can  move  on  to  internal  security. 


The  Rosenberg  Case 


Olney:   Well,  maybe  I  should  mention  the  Rosenberg  case  first  of  all.   The 
Rosenbergs  were  tried  and  convicted  of  violating  the  espionage  law 
and,  as  you  know,  were  executed.   The  case  was  tried  and  the  sentence 
imposed  before  we  took  office,  and,  indeed,  the  conviction  had  been 
affirmed  on  appeal  before  we  took  office.   There  was  some  kind  of 
application  made  to  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  for  a  stay  and 
a  chance  to  argue  some  new  point  which  did  occur  after  we  were  in 
office. 

Stein:   Was  that  the  one  where  the  defense  got  Justice  Douglas  to  issue  a 
stay? 

Olney:   Yes,  that  was  a  little  later.   I  don't  remember  who  argued  the 
matter  of  the  stay  in  the  Supreme  Court,  but  my  recollection  is 
that  it  was  the  same  government  lawyers  who  had  handled  the  appeal 
all  the  way  through.   They  knew  the  case  and  we  didn't. 

So  the  date  of  execution  was  set.   Just  before  the  execution, 
the  defense  attorneys  made  the  usual  rounds  asking  each  individual 
justice  for  a  stay,  on  some  new  point.   They  were  turned  down  by 
everybody  excepting  Douglas.   This  was  during  the  summer  when  the 
Court  had  disbanded  and  was  on  vacation.   Douglas  granted  a  stay. 


348 


Olney:   Well,  when  Chief  Justice  Vinson  heard  about  this,  he  promptly 
ordered  the  Court  to  reassemble,  notwithstanding  that  the  term 
had  ended,  in  order  to  hear  the  matter  at  once.   And  they  did,  on 
a  very  short  notice,  just  a  very  few  days  notice.   The  Court  con 
vened  and  a  hearing  was  had  on  the  morning  of  the  day  that  had 
been  set  for  execution.   The  argument  was  brief.   The  Court  made 
its  ruling  right  from  the  bench,  denied  the  motion,  and  so,  of 
course,  the  stay  was  lifted. 

That  meant  the  execution  was  supposed  to  be  carried  out  that 
very  day.  Well,  the  responsibility  for  carrying  out  that  execu 
tion  rested  on  James  V.  Bennett  as  director  of  the  Bureau  of 
Prisons.   But  federal  executions  were  carried  out  according  to 
the  law  of  the  state  where  the  conviction  had  taken  place.   In 
this  case  they  had  been  convicted  in  the  state  of  New  York,  and 
New  York  had  electrocution  as  their  means  of  carrying  out  a  death 
sentence.   So  these  people  were  to  be  electrocuted. 

Well,  the  federal  people  had  no  executioner;  they  always  used 
the  state  executioners.   And  it  turns  out  that  executioners  are 
hard  to  come  by.   It  isn't  everybody  who  is  willing  to  be  an  execu 
tioner.   New  York  had  had  difficulty  in  getting  one,  but  they  had 
one.   Arrangements  had  been  made  by  Mr.  Bennett  prior  to  the  stay 
by  Bill  Douglas,  but  when  the  stay  was  granted  Bennett  had  not 
anticipated  the  speed  with  which  Chief  Justice  Vinson  would  act 
and  that  the  execution  might  go  ahead.   So  when  the  stay  was  dis 
solved  he  had  to  scurry  around  and  find  the  executioner  to  perform 
his  duties  that  evening. 

Well,  the  executioner  had  gone  trout  fishing,  and  nobody  knew 
exactly  where  he  was.   They  had  a  terrible  time  finding  him.   The 
search,  considering  its  purpose,  was  really  kind  of  gruesome. 
They  finally  did  locate  him  in  upstate  New  York,  in  the  mountains 
somewhere.   They  flew  him  out  by  helicopter  down  to  Sing  Sing. 
The  execution  was  to  take  place,  as  I  recall,  at  nine  o'clock  in 
the  evening . 

Not  knowing  whether  there  were  going  to  be  more  stays  or  other 
delays  or  something  of  that  kind,  we  had  to  be  prepared  for  any 
kind  of  emergency  that  might  take  place.   This  meant  that  we 
assembled  in  the  Department  of  Justice  building,  and  we  made  the 
mistake  of  doing  it  in  J.  Edgar  Hoover's  office.   I  think  we'd 
have  been  better  somewhere  else.   Hoover  was  there,  and  Mr.  Bennett 
and  I  and  the  attorney  general  and  the  deputy  attorney  general.   I 
don't  remember  whether  other  assistants  were  there  or  not.   But  we 
had  to  sit  there  in  that  room,  with  open  telephone  lines  to  Sing 
Sing  to  be  in  touch  while  time  marched  on. 


349 


Olney:   Now,  what  they  were  doing  up  at  Sing  Sing  was  doing  their  utmost  to 
persuade  the  Rosenbergs  to  make  confessions  and  tell  the  full  story 
of  what  their  espionage  activities  had  been.   They  were  hopeful  that 
they  could  persuade  them,  hopeful  right  to  the  last.   But  they  never 
did  succeed. 

Well,  a  more  gruesome  experience  I'd  never  had  in  my  life.   It 
was  perfectly  ghastly.   And  then  we  got  word  that  no,  there  was  no 
intervention,  and  the  time  had  come.   They  threw  the  switch  and 
Julius  Rosenberg  died  with  the  very  first  application,  but  Mrs. 
Rosenberg  didn't.   The  doctor  had  to  go  and  listen  to  her  chest  and 
her  heart  was  still  beating  and  so  they  gave  her  another  jolt.   It 
was  just  horrible,  terrible. 

But  that  was  the  Rosenberg  case.   There  wasn't  anything  we  could 
do  about  it;  we  had  no  responsibility  for  it,  you  know,  one  way  or 
the  other.   But  we  had  to  be  spectators  and  participants  to  an 
extent  in  this  thing. 

There  was  a  good  deal  of  agitation  about  the  case.   Judge  Irving 
Kaufman  had  tried  the  case  and  he  got  a  lot  of  mean  and  nasty  letters 
and  had  to  have  a  guard  for  a  time,  things  of  that  kind.   It  was  a 
very  unpleasant  experience,  but  a  memorable  one. 

Stein:   I  have  a  couple  of  questions  about  arguments  in  the  case.   In  the 

television  documentary  on  PBS*  one  of  the  assistants  to  the  defense 
attorneys  said  that  in  her  opinion  the  case  never  would  have  gotten 
to  first  base  if  it  had  been  tried  in  the  New  York  State  court,  but 
because  it  was  tried  in  federal  court  there  were  different  rules 
governing  the  admissibility  of  evidence  in  a  conspiracy  case.   I 
wonder  if  you  could  explain  that,  because  it  wasn't  clear  to  me. 

Olney:   Well,  I  think  that  what  she's  talking  about  must  be  the  accomplice 
rule.   In  New  York  State,  and  many  states,  there  is  a  rule  of 
evidence  that  a  defendant  cannot  be  convicted  on  the  testimony  of 
an  accomplice  alone  unless  it  is  corroborated  by  other  evidence, 
or  unless  there  are  at  least  two  accomplices  who  testify.   But  the 
testimony  of  one  accomplice  is  not  enough  without  corroborating 
evidence.   There's  no  such  federal  statute.   That's  what  I  think 
she  was  talking  about. 


*"The  Unquiet  Death  of  Julius  and  Ethel  Rosenberg,"  PBS,  March  15, 
1974. 


350 


Olney:    I  saw  the  TV  show,  too,  and  it  had  certain  merits.   They  stuck  very 
closely  to  the  transcript  and  to  the  exhibits.   But  it  had  some  very 
serious  demerits,  in  my  opinion.   I  think  the  reason  that  the  thing 
was  put  together  was  because  of  the  conviction  on  the  part  of  the 
people  who  did  it  that  the  Rosenbergs  were  innocent  and  they  wanted 
to  make  a  documentary  that  would  prove  that.   And  that's  what  the 
show  was  about.   So  that's  the  slant  that  it  takes.   I  wouldn't 
attempt  to  argue  the  Rosenberg  case,  but  I  do  think  it's  a  very 
dangerous  thing  to  rely  upon  a  movie  film  if  you  want  to  arrive  at 
true  conclusions,  to  base  them  on  that  kind  of  a  documentary. 

There  were  some  things  about  it  that  I  thought  were  quite  obvious 
sham.   They  spoke  of  the  jury  and  indicated  that  they  felt  that  it 
was  a  hand-picked  jury  of  people  who  all  came  from  the  same  walks 
of  life  and  read  the  same  papers  and  all  this  sort  of  thing.   There's 
no  justification  for  that.   They  didn't  go  into  any  detail.   You'll 
notice  when  the  camera  went  across  the  jury  panel  they  skipped 
right  over  the  black  juror.   They  didn't  even  mention  him. 

The  inference  was  that  the  jury  was  prejudiced  because  there 
weren't  any  Jews  on  it.  Well,  there  were  Jews  all  over  that  case. 
The  judge  was  a  Jew.   The  two  prosecutors  were  Jews.   The  clerk  of 
the  court  was  a  Jew.   I  don't  know  how  you  could  have  a  case  that 
had  more  Jews  in  it.   I  don't  know  whether  there  were  Jews  on  the 
jury  or  not.   But  I  don't  think  that  the  panel  was  subject  to  that 
criticism;  I  don't  believe  it  was  hand-picked. 

Another  thing  that  they  did  was  make  the  flat  accusation  that 
Gold's  registration  in  the  hotel  in  Albuquerque  was  a  forgery,  and 
that  it  must  be  a  forgery  committed  by  the  FBI.  Well,  I  don't 
hold  a  brief  for  the  Bureau  or  its  agents,  but  I  do  not  believe  at 
all  that  Bureau  agents  indulge  in  forgeries.   I  don't  believe  that's 
the  case.   I  don't  think  the  thing  was  a  forgery,  or,  if  it  was,  that 
the  Bureau  had  anything  to  do  with  it. 

It  reminded  me,  as  I  think  I  mentioned  to  you  before,  of  the  play 
that  was  put  out  about  Tom  Mooney  by  people  who  wanted  to  get  over 
the  point  to  the  public  that  Tom  Mooney  was  innocent  of  the  bombing 
of  the  Preparedness  Day  parade  in  San  Francisco,  back  in  1916.   If 
you  went  to  the  play,  sure,  you'd  come  to  that  conclusion.   But  if 
you  listened  to  the  evidence  in  the  case,  it  was  another  story. 


The  Joseph  Weinberg  Case 


Olney:   Now,  I  do  think  that  it's  worth  talking  about  the  Joseph  Weinberg 
case  following  the  Rosenberg  case. 


351 


Olney:   The  espionage  that  the  Rosenbergs  are  alleged  to  have  committed  was 
after  the  Japanese  and  German  surrenders,  after  the  atomic  bomb  had 
been  exploded  in  Japan  and  the  open  fighting  had  stopped.   It  was 
at  a  very  crucial  period,  however,  when  the  United  States  was  doing 
its  utmost  to  try  to  reach  international  agreement,  including  the 
Russians,  for  a  pooling  of  all  information  about  nuclear  fission, 
so  that  we  would  not  have  an  arms  race  in  the  nuclear  field,  so 
that  we  could  avoid  the  horrors  of  a  nuclear  war. 

At  the  time,  it  was  the  Russians  who  were  the  most  reluctant  to 
take  part  in  this.   The  reason  was  that  they  didn't  want  to  enter 
into  any  such  arrangements  when  they  themselves  didn't  know  how  to 
make  an  atomic  bomb.   They  were  doing  their  best  to  try  to  find  out 
how  to  explode  an  atomic  bomb,  and  we  were  doing  our  best  to  keep 
it  secret,  for  the  time  being  at  least.   Everybody  knew  that  it  was 
only  a  question  of  time  until  scientists  in  any  country  or  in  every 
country  would  be  able  to  do  it.   But  you  couldn't  do  it  quickly.   It 
was  estimated  that  it  would  take  the  Russians  something  like  six  or 
seven  years,  I  believe,  to  work  this  out. 

But  they  did  explode  their  bomb  very  much  sooner  than  anybody 
expected.   It  became  very  evident  that  this  was  the  result  of 
espionage.   Klaus  Fuchs  was  arrested  in  England  and  made  a  complete 
confession  of  all  the  information  that  he  had  supplied  to  them 
about  the  work  at  Los  Alamos.   It  was  in  that  connection  that  the 
Rosenbergs  became  involved. 

Well,  in  sitting  around  having  lunch  in  the  Department  of  Justice, 
as  I  described  before,  one  day  J.  Edgar  Hoover  regaled  us  with  how 
the  FBI  had  first  learned  of  the  Manhattan  Project,  which,  as  you 
know,  is  the  project  that  first  developed  the  atom  bomb.   It  seems 
that  the  Bureau  was  not  informed  at  the  outset  that  there  was  any 
such  project,  and  knew  nothing  about  it. 

According  to  Mr.  Hoover's  story,  they  were  very  apprehensive 
about  Russian  espionage.   They  did  know  that  work  was  going  on  at 
the  Atomic  Energy  Center  at  the  [University  of  California  at] 
Berkeley  campus,  that  it  was  highly  classified,  very  secret  work, 
and  that  the  work  did  have  some  weapon  possibility  in  connection 
with  it.   They  were  keeping  close  tabs  on  everybody  in  this  vicinity 
that  they  regarded  as  a  Russian  agent.   Among  those  was  a  leading 
organizer  for  the  Communist  party,  a  fellow  named  Nelson. 

Stein:   Was  this  Steve  Nelson? 

Olney:   Steve  Nelson,  yes.   He  was  living  in  San  Francisco  and  was  a  member 
of  the  party  and  a  party  organizer.   Mr.  Hoover  told  us  that  there 
had  been  a  "bug"  placed  on  Steve  Nelson's  telephone  at  home.   The 


352 


Olney:    "bug"  was  not  an  ordinary  telephone  tap,  but  was  in  the  base  of  the 
telephone  itself,  so  that  it  would  pick  up  not  only  what  went  on 
over  the  telephone,  but  also  conversations  in  the  room. 

He  said  that  one  day  when  they  heard  the  telephone  ring,  Mrs. 
Nelson  had  answered  and  the  man  asked  for  Steve  and  said  that  it 
was  important  that  he  see  him.   Mrs.  Nelson  said  that  he  wasn't 
there,  that  he  was  attending  a  meeting.   He'd  be  home  before  very 
long.   The  man  said,  "It's  very  important  that  I  see  him,  and  so 
I'm  coming  right  over,"  indicating  that  he  was  across  the  Bay.   The 
agents  did  not  recognize  the  voice,  but  as  you  can  imagine,  there 
was  a  reception  committee  for  him  when  he  appeared  at  the  house. 
They  did  not  recognize  him  when  they  saw  him  go  in.  He  told  Mrs. 
Nelson,  as  they  got  it  over  the  "bug,"  that  he  must  see  Steve,  and 
he  would  wait  there  for  him. 

Well,  Steve  came  in  in  due  course,  and  Mrs.  Nelson  left  them 
alone.   The  man  told  Steve  that  he  had  some  extremely  important 
information  that  he  must  pass  on,  and  that  it  was  in  the  nature  of 
a  formula  that  he  wanted  him  to  write  down,  as  he  didn't  want  to 
give  him  the  paper  on  which  he  had  it.   So  he  dictated  this  formula. 
It  was  a  complicated  kind  of  formula,  and  Nelson  had  to  ask  him  to 
repeat  parts  of  it  to  get  it  right.   This  all  came  out  over  the 
"bug"  and  it  was  recorded  and  made  available  to  the  agents. 

After  Nelson  got  the  formula  down,  the  man  left.   He  was  tailed, 
of  course,  across  the  Bay  to  Berkeley  and  they  found  out  that  he 
was  Joseph  W.  Weinberg,  a  scientist  employed  at  the  Atomic  Energy 
Project  on  the  hill  in  Berkeley. 

Stein:   At  the  Lawrence  Radiation  Laboratory? 
Olney:   The  radiation  laboratory,  yes. 

They  also  watched  Nelson's  house  to  see  what  he  did.   They  saw 
him  leave  the  house,  and  tailed  him — well,  they  heard  him  make  a 
phone  call  over  to  the  Russian  consulate  first.   There  were  some 
cryptic  remarks  evidently  making  arrangements  to  meet,  because 
Nelson  left  his  house  and  went  to  a  park  where  he  met  a  man  who  had 
come  from  the  Russian  consulate.   The  two  of  them  talked,  the 
agents  saw  Nelson  hand  a  paper  to  the  man,  the  man  went  back  to 
the  embassy,  and  Nelson  went  home. 

Well,  the  FBI  agents  were  mystified  by  this  formula.   It  made  no 
sense  to  them;  they  had  no  idea  what  it  was.   They  made  discreet 
inquiries  of  various  scientists  whom  they  thought  might  know,  but 
they  were  unable  to  find  anybody  who  had  any  idea  what  this  was 


353 


Olney:   until  finally  they  hit  one  man — they  got  a  tremendous  reaction  from 
him — who  just  jumped  up  in  the  air  with  excitement  and  demanded  to 
know  where  they  got  it.   He  knew  what  it  was.   It  was  some  essential 
part  of  the  work  that  was  being  done  at  the  radiation  laboratories 
as  a  part  of  the  Manhattan  Project. 

Well,  then,  of  course,  the  Bureau  was  informed  that  there  was 
this  Manhattan  Project,  and  it  was  super-secret  and  so  forth. 

This  incident  took  place  long  before  the  Rosenberg  incident. 
This  took  place  long  before  the  bomb  was  exploded,  when  the  exper 
imental  work  was  still  going  on.  We  were  in  active  warfare  against 
both  Germany  and  Japan  at  that  time.   The  delivery  of  this  informa 
tion  by  Weinberg  seemed  to  me  to  be  a  far  more  serious  offense  than 
the  one  committed  by  the  Rosenbergs,  who  had  been  executed. 

So  after  Mr.  Hoover  had  related  this,  which  was  only  by  way  of 
casual  information  over  lunch,  I  went  up  to  his  office  to  see  him 
and  asked  him  about  it.   I  said,  "That  story  about  Weinberg,  is  that 
provable?"  And  he  said,  "Yes,  I  think  it  is  provable."   I  said, 
"It  seems  to  me  it's  far  more  serious  than  the  Rosenberg  offense." 
He  said,  "I  think  it  is  too."  I  said,  "There's  no  statute  of  limita 
tions  on  treason.   And,  if  the  evidence  is  available,  is  there  any 
reason  that  you  know  why  Weinberg  shouldn't  be  prosecuted?"  He 
said,  "No." 

Stein:   You  mean  all  this  time  he  hadn't  been  prosecuted? 

Olney:   No,  no.   I  asked  him  about  that,  why  Weinberg  hadn't  been  arrested 
and  prosecuted,  and  he  gave  me  a  very  good  answer,  which  was  that 
the  work  being  done  on  the  bomb  was  super-secret.   They  couldn't 
possibly  prosecute  Weinberg  without  revealing  the  existence  of  the 
Manhattan  Project  and  the  general  nature  of  what  the  work  was  which 
was  still  underway.   They  just  had  to  accept  that  they  couldn't 
charge  him  at  that  time.   But  it  did  seem  to  me  that  they  could  have 
charged  him  later,  after  the  bomb  was  exploded.   But  they  didn't. 

He  never  gave  me  any  further  explanation.   But  in  reading  this 
book  on  Oppenheimer  and  Lawrence*,  I  do  believe  the  explanation  is 
there. 


Nuel  P.  Davis,  Lawrence  and  Oppenheimer  (New  York,  1968). 


354 


Olney:    It's  quite  apparent  from  that  book  that  there  were  two  lines  of 

approach  toward  the  development  of  the  atomic  bomb.   Lawrence  had 
one  with  the  radiation  laboratory,  in  which  the  basic  idea  was 
bigger  and  better  cyclotrons  and  a  process  that  Lawrence  thought 
would  produce  the  bomb,  but  which  actually  never  did.   Oppenheimer 
had  a  somewhat  different  theory  and  a  different  approach  which  was 
being  developed  at  Los  Alamos,  [New  Mexico] ,  which  actually  did 
produce. 

Well,  Weinberg's  information  was  about  the  nonproductive  radia 
tion  lab  process ,  and  there  would  have  been  good  reason  for  hoping 
that  the  Russians  would  pursue  the  thinking  that  that  was  the 
process  that  had  produced  the  workable  bomb,  instead  of  pursuing 
the  Los  Alamos  thing,  which  they  did  through  Fuchs  and  the 
Rosenbergs.   So  that  may  well  be  one  of  the  reasons. 

At  any  rate,  I  thought  the  fellow  ought  to  be  prosecuted,  if 
possible.  We  called  for  all  of  the  old  reports  from  the  FBI  and 
were  going  to  review  it  with  the  idea  of  presenting  it  to  the  grand 
jury,  but  we  never  did  get  the  essential  reports.   Of  course,  we 
would  have  had  to  have  the  record  of  the  notes,  at  least,  of  what 
was  taken  down  from  the  "bug."  At  that  time  the  decisions  on  the 
Supreme  Court  on  the  use  of  telephone  taps  and  "bugs"  were  nowhere 
near  as  stringent  as  they  are  now.   I  was  quite  prepared  to  go  into 
court  and  present  that  evidence,  notwithstanding  the  way  in  which 
it  was  gathered.   In  such  a  case  I  still  think  that  we  would  have 
won  it  if  we'd  been  able  to  prove  it. 

But  Mr.  Hoover  told  me  eventually  that  the  evidence  simply  wasn't 
available.  Many  of  the  agents  had  left  the  service,  and  they 
couldn't  find  the  original  notes.   And  then  it  turned  out  that  it 
wasn't  the  FBI  that  had  put  in  the  "bug"  anyhow.   It  was  naval 
intelligence  that  had  made  the  installation.   This  was  during  the 
war.   Everybody  and  his  uncle  had  an  intelligence  unit.   And  while 
they  tried  to  work  together,  the  confusion  was  immense.   It  was 
actually  naval  intelligence  that  had  put  in  the  "bug"  and  had 
gotten  the  formula.   Bureau  agents  were  working  with  them  and  they 
picked  it  up  in  that  fashion,  which  made  it  impossible  to  go  back 
and  get  the  original  evidence  and  the  proofs.   So  we  couldn't  do 
anything  about  it. 

But  we  did  have  another  case  against  Joseph  W.  Weinberg.   And 
this  was  one  of  those  annoying  kinds  of  cases — it  was  a  perjury 
charge.  Weinberg's  connection  with  the  communists  had  gotten  out. 
He  was  hailed,  along  with  a  lot  of  others,  before  the  Internal 
Security  Committee.   I  guess  it  was  a  Senate  committee.   He  was 
asked  a  lot  of  questions:  whether  he  belonged  to  the  party — he  said 
he  did  not — and  whether  he  had  attended  a  particular  meeting  of  the 
Communist  party.   Now,  this  meeting  was  held  in  a  house  here  in 


355 


Olney:   Berkeley,  when  the  party  members  were  asked  to  come  together  to 
hear  the  explanation  of  why  the  Russians  had  signed  the  non- 
aggression  pact  with  Adolf  Hitler.   It  took  some  explaining. 

The  man  who  had  to  make  that  explanation  on  behalf  of  the  Commun 
ist  party  was  named  Paul  Crouch.   He'd  been  a  communist  organizer 
for  years,  and  a  very  active  member  indeed.   Crouch  had  attended 
this  meeting,  and  was  able  to  fix  the  date  by  reason  of  the  pact 
and  so  forth,  and  had  given  the  official  reasons  for  the  Russians 
signing  the  pact  with  Hitler  at  that  time. 

Now,  Crouch,  later  on,  not  very  long  after  that,  because  of  the 
pact,  became  completely  disillusioned  with  the  communists.   He  just 
could  not  swallow  that  pact  with  Hitler.   And  while  he  always  main 
tained  his  Marxist  beliefs,  the  Russians  and  the  Stalinist  commun 
ists  became  anathema  to  him.   He  went  to  the  FBI  and  told  them 
everything  he  knew.   Among  other  things,  he  told  them  about  this 
meeting  of  the  Communist  party  here  in  Berkeley  where  he'd  gone  to 
explain  the  reasons  for  the  Russo-German  pact  to  the  people  assembled 
there.   And  he  said  that  Joseph  W.  Weinberg  was  a  member  of  the  party 
and  was  there  at  that  meeting. 

Well,  he  didn't  know  exactly  where  the  meeting  was.   He  said  it 
was  in  north  Berkeley  and  he'd  been  taken  there  by  somebody.   It 
was  in  a  residence.   He  was  able  to  describe  the  residence,  both 
inside  and  out,  what  kind  of  view  they  had,  the  arrangement  of 
rooms,  stairs,  and  all  kinds  of  details.   Nobody  could  figure  out 
where  there  was  a  house  like  that.   But  the  Bureau  agents  and  the 
Berkeley  police  and  others  took  Paul  Crouch  all  over  north  Berkeley 
for  several  days  and  they  finally  went  down  here  to  Eagle  Hill, 
just  a  few  blocks  from  here.   They  no  sooner  got  up  on  top  of  the 
hill  when  Crouch  said,  "This  is  the  place.   That's  the  house." 

This  turned  out  to  be  a  house  that  had  been  rented  by  Oppenheimer. 
Oppenheimer  had  been  living  there  at  that  time.   They  didn't  take 
Crouch  into  the  house,  but  they  had  him  describe  it  again  very 
meticulously,  and  then  they  went  in  and  they  found  that  he  was 
describing  it  with  reasonable  accuracy.   So,  they  finally  took  him 
in  and  he  recognized  everything,  but  there  was  one  thing  that  he 
said  was  different.   He  said,  "There  was  no  partition  here;  there 
was  a  doorway  here."  They  checked  back  and  found  out  that,  sure 
enough,  there  had  been  a  doorway  there  in  1941  that  had  been  closed 
off  later. 

Well,  he  did  many  things  like  that  that  convinced  us  completely 
that  the  man  had  actually  been  in  the  house  all  right.   Otherwise 
he  couldn't  have  described  it  in  this  fashion.  We  never  had  any 


356 


Olney:  reason  for  disbelieving  him  anyway.  He  was  there  and  described  this 
meeting.  The  other  thing  was  that  he  also  said  that  Oppenheimer  was 
there  at  the  meeting. 

Now,  this  turned  out  to  be  a  sticker,  because  Oppenheimer  had 
what  seemed  to  be  an  airtight  alibi  that  he  was  in  Los  Alamos  on 
the  day  that  this  meeting  was  held.   We  could  fix  the  date  for  a 
certainty.   Oppenheimer  on  that  same  day  had  actually  been  driving 
his  car  [in  Los  Alamos] .   He'd  bumped  a  fender  or  had  some  minor 
accident;  it  didn't  amount  to  a  damn,  but  it  was  enough  that  they 
had  to  get  on  the  police  blotter  with  the  thing,  and  there  was 
an  actual  record  in  the  police  station  of  this  accident  and 
Oppenheimer 's  signature  was  on  the  report  or  something  there,  to 
say  nothing  of  lots  of  people  whose  recollection  was  that  he  was 
there  in  Los  Alamos.  We  were  satisfied  from  this  evidence  that 
Oppenheimer  had  actually  been  in  Los  Alamos  both  before  and  after 
the  Berkeley  meeting,  but  we  thought  he  might  have  gone  back  and 
forth  on  an  airplane. 

We  checked  all  the  airlines,  but  found  out  that  the  schedules 
were  such  that  he  could  not  have  done  it  on  regular  scheduled 
flights.   The  Bureau  thought  that  maybe  he  had  made  it  by  private 
plane.   They  checked  all  the  private  airplanes  and  everything  else, 
but  they  couldn't  find  any  record  that  there  had  been  any  such 
private  flights . 

Meanwhile,  the  indictment  for  perjury  against  Weinberg  had  been 
returned  in  the  District  of  Columbia.   Billy  Hitts  was  the  assistant 
U.S.  Attorney  who  was  preparing  it  for  trial.   A  day  or  so  before 
it  was  to  go  to  trial,  he  came  down  to  see  me.  Well,  we  discussed 
the  situation  because  we  were  faced  with  this  alternative.  We  had 
to  use  Paul  Crouch  as  a  witness,  of  course,  and  if  Paul  Crouch  was 
going  to  testify  that  Weinberg  was  there,  we  were  certain  that  he 
would  have  to  testify  that  Oppenheimer  was  there.   That  was  his 
recollection.   On  that  we  were  sure  that  he  must  be  mistaken.   If 
we  went  ahead,  we  would  have  to  say  very  frankly  to  the  jury,  "On 
that  point,  we're  confident  that  Crouch  is  mistaken.   Oppenheimer 
has  an  alibi  that  he  was  in  Los  Alamos  at  the  time  of  the  Berkeley 
meeting.   We  concede  that  Crouch  is  mistaken  about  Oppenheimer 's 
being  present,  but  we  are  satisfied  with  the  accuracy  of  the  rest 
of  his  testimony."  We  couldn't  have  taken  any  other  position  than 
that  Crouch  was  mistaken  in  that  particular.   Of  course,  that  does 
obviously  weaken  his  testimony.   But  nonetheless,  in  view  of  who 
Weinberg  was,  I  just  was  very,  very  reluctant  to  see  him  escape 
completely. 

But  after  going  over  every  aspect  of  it,  Billy  and  I  decided  to 
dismiss  the  indictment.   The  best  thing  was  not  to  try  to  present 
that  case  at  all.   It  would  have  been  very,  very  unfair  to 
Oppenheimer  to  have  put  on  testimony,  by  a  witness  that  we  were 


357 


Olney:   vouching  for,  that  he  had  been  at  a  Communist  party  meeting  of  that 
character,  when  we  ourselves  were  satisfied  with  his  alibi,  because 
of  the  publicity  he  would  get.   It  would  be  all  over  the  place.   So 
we  had  to  back  away,  and  we  dismissed  the  Weinberg  case  and  Weinberg 
was  never  prosecuted  or  convicted  of  anything,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that,  to  this  day,  I  think  he  was  guilty  of  a  far  worse  offense  than 
the  Rosenbergs . 

Stein:   It  seems  strange  to  me  that  in  a  case  of  that  magnitude  the  FBI 
would  have  let  the  records  slip  away  like  that. 

Olney:    I  suppose  you  are  now  talking  about  Weinberg 's  having  given  the 

formula  to  the  man  from  the  Russian  consulate.  Well,  I  don't  know, 
but  that's  what  happened.   The  agent  who  had  the  most  to  do  with 
that  matter  is  now  a  United  States  District  Court  judge  in  St.  Louis, 
Missouri,  James  H.  Meredith.   He  knew  these  same  facts  independently 
and  from  firsthand  information.   So  it  happened,  all  right,  just  the 
way  Hoover  said  it  did. 


The  Owen  Lattimore  Case 
[Interview  10:  April  8,  1974] 


Stein:   Well,  let's  go  on  to  Owen  Lattimore. 

Olney:   Well,  the  Lattimore  case  was  a  very  unusual  one.   Owen  Lattimore 
was  a  well-known  writer  and  authority  on  China  and  a  traveler  in 
China.   He  had  done  a  great  deal  of  traveling  and  writing  in  years 
prior  to  the  war.   I  believe  he  speaks  Chinese.   During  the  period 
of  the  warlords  he  had  covered  most  of  China.   He  used  to  write 
articles  and  books  on  China,  some  of  which  I  had  read.   He  was 
generally  regarded  as  a  real  authority  on  China. 

But  during  this  period  when  there  were  all  these  charges  that 
our  relations  in  China  had  been  worsened  by  betrayals  from  inside 
our  own  government,  his  name  got  into  the  hopper  along  with  a  lot 
of  others,  simply  because  he  was  well  known,  I  guess.   He  was 
called — I'm  doing  this  entirely  from  my  recollection  and  I  may  not 
be  correct  on  all  the  details,  but  I  think  I  remember  it  well 
enough  in  general — my  recollection  is  that  he  was  called  before 
one  of  the  congressional  committees  (I  don't  recall  whether  it  was 
a  House  or  a  Senate  committee)  and  questioned  at  very  great  length 
about  his  acquaintances  with  people  who  then  turned  out  to  be 
Chinese  communists. 


358 


Olney:   Of  course,  before  the  period  of  the  Great  March  into  northwest 

China  by  the  Chinese  communists,  there  was  lots  of  doubt  in  every 
body's  mind  as  to  just  who  they  were,  the  reason  being  that  the 
Chinese  were  just  fighting  with  each  other  all  the  time.   There 
were  all  kinds  of  warlords  and  it  was  difficult  for  outsiders  to 
differentiate  between  one  set  of  warlords  and  others,  and  to  know 
whether  any  one  of  these  armies  had  any  sincerity  or  any  real 
purpose  behind  it. 

Mao  Tse-Tung  and  his  group  appeared  to  be  just  another  bunch  of 
fighters.   Lots  of  people  came  in  contact  with  them — [Edgar]  Snow 
was  one — and  finally  became  impressed  with  their  devotion  to 
principle.   This  was  not  just  another  warlord,  but  these  were, 
indeed,  people  who  had  a  completely  new  approach  to  what  life  in 
China  ought  to  be.   They  used  to  call  them  "farmers"  at  one  time. 
They  were  agrarian  workers.  Well,  they  were,  because  they  had  to 
raise  all  their  own  food,  things  of  this  kind.   The  communists,  up 
until  that  time,  the  Russian  brand  of  communists,  had  always  been 
identified  with  city  workers.   These  were  agriculturalists. 

Well,  Lattimore  and  Snow  and  others  visited  these  people  and 
wrote  about  them.   It  was  on  this  basis  that  Lattimore  was  ques 
tioned  in  very,  very  great  detail.   He  answered  all  of  the  questions 
completely.   He  was  also  asked  questions  about  his  activities  more 
recently — that  is,  in  more  recent  years — around  the  city  of  Washing 
ton.  And  he  was  asked  some  questions  as  to  whether  he  had  met  some 
body  from  the  Russian  embassy  and  had  lunch  with  him  at  such-and-such 
a  place.   Anyway,  there  were  a  lot  of  details  of  that  kind  on  which 
he  was  questioned. 

Well,  he  tried  to  answer  them,  did  answer  them.   Then  evidence 
was  brought  forward  showing  that  some  of  his  answers  were  incorrect, 
that  he  had  denied  meeting  people  that  he  had  met,  that  he  had 
denied  being  in  places  where  the  proof  was  clear  that  he  had  been, 
and  there  were  counts  of  perjury  brought  against  him  based  on  his 
answers  to  questions  of  that  sort.   They  were  really  the  kind  of 
thing  that  anybody  could  have  fallen  into,  without  memoranda  and 
with  ordinary  failure  of  memory.   If  one  is  questioned  very  closely 
and  at  length  by  someone  who  has  records  and  other  sources,  differ 
ences  of  this  kind  are  bound  to  appear.   Well,  the  previous  admin 
istration,  for  reasons  that  have  never  been  clear  to  me,  was  very 
anxious  to  have  Owen  Lattimore  indicted. 

Stein:   Was  this  the  previous  administration  of  the  Justice  Department? 

Olney:   Yes,  this  would  be  Attorney  General  McGranery.   Sometime  between 

the  elections  in  November  and  the  Eisenhower  administration  taking 
over  in  January,  indictments  against  Lattimore  were  returned  in 
Washington,  D.C.,  based  on  perjury.   So,  we  inherited  that  case  in 
the  form  of  an  indictment  already  returned. 


359 


Olney:   Of  course,  the  return  of  an  indictment  of  this  character  against  a 
man  so  well  known  created  a  great  stir  all  around  the  country. 
There  were  a  great  many  people  in  university  circles  who  had  known 
him  well  and  were  completely  convinced  of  his  innocence  and  felt 
this  was  a  gross  injustice.   There  were  others  who  didn't  know  him 
so  well  who  were  extremely  suspicious. 

It  was  within  my  authority  to  dismiss  that  indictment.   I  read 
the  testimony  and  I  read  the  reports.   If  I  had  been  able  to  read 
the  grand  jury  testimony  and  read  the  reports  prior  to  any  action 
being  taken,  I  would  have  recommended  against  an  indictment  because 
it  didn't  seem  to  me  that  it  was  a  provable  case.   There  was  enough 
there  perhaps  to  call  for  as  complete  an  investigation  as  you  could 
make,  on  the  chance  that  something  more  definitive  in  the  way  of 
evidence  would  show  up.   But  on  the  basis  of  what  was  at  hand  at 
that  time,  it  seemed  very  weak  to  me. 

But  I  didn't  discuss  this.   I  didn't  pass  the  decision  on  to 
somebody  else.   I  concluded  that  I  ought  to  take  the  load  on  myself, 
and  I  decided  that  we  ought  to  go  ahead  and  try  it.   The  reasons 
were:  if  we  dismissed  the  case,  there  would  be  a  tremendous  com 
motion,  claiming  that  influential  people  had  stepped  in  and  caused 
us  to  dismiss  the  case  against  Lattimore,  just  because  he  was  a 
well-known  and  well-connected  person.   And  there  would  be  a  great 
many  people  who  would  continue  to  believe  he  was  guilty  and,  in 
fact,  would  think  that  that  dismissal  was  just  evidence  that  he  was. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  we  went  ahead  and  presented  the  case  in 
public  for  what  it  was — one  never  knows  what's  going  to  develop  in 
a  trial.   Sometimes  when  cases  go  to  trial,  they  turn  out  to  be 
far  stronger  than  the  prosecutor  thinks  at  the  time  he  begins,  in 
which  case,  if  he  was  guilty,  then  he  ought  to  be  convicted.   But 
on  the  other  hand,  if  the  case  was  as  weak  as  it  appeared  to  be  or 
got  weaker,  and  he  was  acquitted,  then  his  name  would  be  cleared, 
to  a  great  extent  anyway,  by  a  jury  and  a  court  that  had  heard  all 
the  evidence  and  concluded  that  he  wasn't  guilty.   So  we  decided  to 
go  ahead  with  it.   That  was  my  own  judgment  about  it. 

But  I,  of  course,  did  not  go  into  the  facts  of  that  case  to  the 
extent  a  man  would  who  was  going  to  present  it  for  trial.   There 
you  have  to  interview  all  the  witnesses  and  examine  all  the  evidence 
and  complete  the  investigation  and  things  of  this  kind,  and  I  had 
no  time  or  opportunity  to  do  that.   So  I  thought  we  should  find  an 
outside  special  prosecutor  who  was  experienced  and  who  would  approach 
the  thing  with  an  open  mind  to  investigate,  prepare,  and  further 
evaluate  the  case.  We  would  inform  him,  when  he  took  it  on,  that 
if  he  concluded  that  the  case  was  not  triable  and  that  the  proof  was 
not  there,  we  would  dismiss.   On  the  other  hand,  if  he  concluded  that 
it  was  a  triable  case,  and  he  so  recommended,  then  we  would  expect 
him  to  try  the  case,  and  not  somebody  else. 


360 


Olney:   Well,  it  seemed  to  me  that  putting  the  responsibility  on  him  was 

pretty  good  insurance  that  we  were  going  to  get  an  evaluation  that 
was  a  fair  one.  We  got  Leo  Rover  for  the  purpose.  Now,  Leo  was  no 
acquaintance  of  mine,  but  the  deputy  attorney  general,  Bill  Rogers, 
had  known  him  in  former  years.   He,  at  one  time,  had  been  U.S. 
Attorney  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  I  believe,  during  the  Hoover 
administration.   Then  he  was  in  private  practice  and  had  a  broad 
experience  as  a  trial  lawyer.   He  agreed  to  take  on  the  Lattimore 
case  under  the  conditions  that  I've  outlined. 

It  took  him  a  long  time  to  evaluate  the  thing  and,  indeed,  we 
had  to  spend  a  good  deal  of  money  on  that  case,  an  enormous  amount 
of  money,  in  fact,  because  Leo  thought  that  it  was  possible  to  trace 
the  communist  line  of  propaganda  in  Lattimore Ts  more  recent  writings, 
that  when  the  line  would  change,  Lattimore 's  line  would  change,  and 
when  it  would  shift  to  another  direction,  Lattimore  would  shift 
there.   To  work  this  all  out,  we  used  the  Rand  Corporation  from  that 
"think  tank"  in  Santa  Monica.   Their  experts  were  quite  expensive 
and  they  did  a  great  deal  of  work  on  this,  all  of  which  ended  up  by 
convincing  Leo  Rover  that  he  had  a  case.   So  he  went  ahead  and  tried 
it. 

I  can't  recall  the  details  of  the  trial.   I  know  that  there  was  a 
motion  before  Judge  Youngdahl  early  in  the  case,  which  was  granted 
by  Judge  Youngdahl ,  which  ruled  out  some  of  the  charges  that  Leo 
regarded  as  the  major  counts  in  the  indictment. 

Stein:   Yes,  I  think  four  of  the  seven  perjury  charges  were  thrown  out. 

Olney:   Well,  after  those  four  counts  were  ruled  out  by  Judge  Youngdahl, 
there  wasn't  very  much  left  of  the  case.   But  Leo  went  ahead  with 
what  there  was  left,  as  I  recall.   I  can't  remember  how  that  ended, 
whether  the  judge  gave  a  directed  verdict  or  what. 

Stein:   According  to  the  little  bit  of  reading  that  I  did,  the  case  was 
dismissed. 

Olney:   Well,  that  may  be.   I  guess  what  happened  was  that  we  concluded  that 
without  those  four  major  counts,  the  rest  of  it  wasn't  worth  trying. 
Somewhere  along  the  line  I  think  there  was  an  appeal  on  the  judge's 
ruling  on  those  four  counts.   At  any  rate,  it  ended,  and  to  our 
consternation  Leo  got  so  incensed  at  this  adverse  ruling  that  he 
made  a  very  unwise  blast  at  the  judge  in  public.   It  got  into  the 
papers,  and  it  was  very  embarrassing  to  us  to  have  that  happen.   Of 
course,  it  made  the  judge  furious,  and  his  fellow  judges  also. 

It  was  disastrous  for  Leo  himself .   Apparently  Leo  had  some 
ambition  to  be  a  district  court  judge,  but  he  was  never  considered 
for  a  district  court  judgeship  at  any  later  time,  but  he  was 
appointed  to  the  municipal  court.   He  undoubtedly  would  have  been 


361 


Olney:   a  district  court  judge  if  he  hadn't  blown  his  stack  and  fired  off 
at  the  judge  when  he  shouldn't  have.  Well,  that  was  the  Lattimore 
case. 

One  of  the  curious  things  about  it  was  that  Lattimore  was  very 
much  concerned  with  the  Institute  of  Pacific  Relations,  and  I  think 
there  were  some  of  the  counts  in  the  indictment  that  related  to  his 
activities  in  that  organization.   That  Institute  of  Pacific  Relations 
is  the  same  institute  that  showed  up  in  the  FBI  reports  on  me  that 
I  referred  to  earlier.   [laughter] 

Stein:    So  you  might  have  found  yourself  in  the  same  web. 

According  to  one  account  I  read,  in  1952  Lattimore  was  questioned 
by  the  McCarran  Committee,  the  Senate  Internal  Security  Subcommittee, 
and  Senator  McCarran,  according  to  this  author,  "hounded  the  Justice 
Department  relentlessly  for  months,  demanding  that  it  indict 
Lattimore  for  perjury,  and  so  eventually  it  did."  I  wondered  if 
you  knew  if  that  was  accurate. 

Olney:    I  can't  say  that  it  was  accurate,  because  the  Justice  Department 
they're  talking  about  is  the  Democratic  one.   That's  Attorney 
General  McGranery,  and  that  may  well  explain  why  the  indictment 
occurred. 

That  would  be  typical  of  Senator  McCarran.   He  was,  in  my  opinion, 
far  more  vicious  than  Senator  McCarthy,  and  very  much  smarter,  a 
thoroughly  dangerous  man  in  the  Senate.   He  was  the  chairman  of  that 
subcommittee,  and  he  was  also  chairman  of  the  Senate  Judiciary  Com 
mittee. 

Herbert  Brownell  had  not  been  attorney  general  very  long  when  we 
had  a  judicial  vacancy  to  fill.   Bill  Rogers,  as  the  deputy  attorney 
general,  when  there  were  judicial  appointments  to  be  made,  would 
always  consult  with  the  chairman  of  the  Senate  Judiciary  Committee 
about  the  nominee  in  advance,  to  make  sure  that  it  wasn't  someone 
utterly  unacceptable  to  the  committee,  or  that  there  was  some  reason 
that  he  didn't  know  why  the  name  wouldn't  be  accepted  and  so  forth. 

Well,  I  think  it  was  the  very  first  time  that  Rogers  went  to  see 
McCarran  about  a  judicial  vacancy  and  a  nominee  to  fill  it  that 
McCarran  brushed  that  matter  aside  and  said,  "Bill,  I  want  you  to 
nominate  so-and-so  for  such-and-such  a  vacancy,"  which  also  existed. 
This  was  a  name  that  wasn't  under  consideration  for  that  vacancy  at 
all,  but  when  the  Senator  had  expressed  himself  in  that  way,  we  at 
least  took  a  good  look  at  the  man,  investigated  him  thoroughly,  and 
found  out  that  he  was  absolutely  hopeless.   He  couldn't  possibly  get 
any  support  from  the  local  bar,  or  any  adequate  support  from  the 
congressional  delegation  from  the  state  where  he  was.   He  had  what 


362 


Olney:   you  could  only  describe  as  a  bad  character.   So  Rogers  had  to  tell 
the  Senator  that  we  simply  couldn't  consider  sending  that  name  to 
the  president  as  a  nominee. 

Stein:   What  post  was  he  being  nominated  for? 
Olney:   For  a  judgeship,  a  federal  judgeship. 

McCarran  got  into  one  of  his  typical  rages  and  told  Bill  Rogers 
that  he  was  going  to  approve  and  recommend  that  fellow  or  there 
wouldn't  be  a  single  judicial  vacancy  filled.   He  would  not  okay 
any  judicial  appointment  until  this  one  was  made. 

Now,  those  were  not  empty  words.  McCarran  had  done  the  same  thing 
with  Truman  in  connection  with  a  vacancy  on  the  district  court  here 
in  San  Francisco,  and  he  had  been  very  insistent  on  filling  it  with 
a  man  that  was  regarded  before  he  took  the  bench  as  not  being  qual 
ified.   Truman  held  out  for  something  like  two  and  a  half  years, 
with  that  position  vacant.   McCarran  did  permit  some  of  the  other 
positions  to  be  filled,  but  not  that  one.   It  remained  vacant  all 
the  time. 

This  threat,  however,  was  that  there  wouldn't  be  any  judges  con 
firmed  unless  this  one  was.   I  remember  Rogers  coming  back  and  tell 
ing  us  all  about  this  at  lunch,  with  the  attorney  general  there. 
They  were  very,  very  disturbed,  of  course,  and  worried  as  to  what 
they  would  do.   Nobody  could  think  of  how  to  approach  the  problem, 
but  we  went  on  and  went  to  bed  and  woke  up  the  next  morning  to  read 
in  the  paper  that  during  the  night  McCarran  had  died. 

Stein:   Well,  that  solved  the  problem. 

Olney:    It  surely  did.  Well,  the  Lattimore  indictment  that  you  asked  about — 
I  wouldn't  doubt  that  it  had  happened  that  way.   But  I  can't  say  that 
I  remember  even  that  Lattimore  was  called  to  testify  before  the 
McCarran  Committee. 

I  do  believe  that  Lattimore' s  experience  before  whatever  com 
mittee  called  him,  where  he  had  answered  every  question,  was  one  of 
the  major  reasons  why  later  people  who  were  called  before  those 
committees  would  take  the  Fifth  Amendment.   It  was  not  because  they 
necessarily  felt  they'd  done  anything  wrong,  but  because  the  ques 
tioning  was  being  used  not  just  to  pull  out  the  truth,  but  to  try 
to  lay  a  trap  by  getting  some  kind  of  a  wrong  answer  along  the  line 
where  there  was  contradictory  evidence  on  which  they  could  base  a 
perjury  charge.   Lawyers,  of  course,  advising  their  clients  who  were 
called  as  witnesses  in  that  predicament,  very  properly  would  advise 
them  to  take  the  Fifth  Amendment,  not  answer  any  questions. 


363 


Stein: 


Olney : 


Do  you  have  any  other  recollections  of  McCarran? 
that  he  was  really  more  vicious  than  McCarthy. 


You  said  earlier 


No.  Well,  I  might  say  this.   He  is  the  one  who  jammed  through  the 
Internal  Security  Act  of  .1950.   He  was  the  author  of  it  and  jammed 
it  through.   He  got  it  passed  over  Truman's  veto.   That  is  a  really 
thoroughly  unwise  statute,  in  many  particulars.   It's  the  one,  of 
course,  that  has  the  provision  in  there  for  preparing  lists  of 
subversives  to  be  locked  up .   This  program  that  was  in  process  that 
I  described  earlier  was  authorized  under  that  statute.  Well,  that's 
McCarran. 


The  Jencks  Case 


Stein:   The  next  thing  is  the  Jencks  case. 

Olney:   The  Jencks  case  was  a  very  unusual  one.   Jencks  was  a  labor  leader 
in  the  Mine,  Mill,  and  Smelter  Workers'  Union.   He  had  signed  an 
affadavit  that  he  had  never  been  a  member  of  the  Communist  party 
in  order  to  continue  in  his  labor  activities  in  that  union.   There 
was  evidence  to  show  that  he  at  one  time  had  been  a  member  of  the 
party.   So  he  was  tried  for  filing  a  false  affadavit.   One  of  the 
principal  witnesses  against  him  was  an  informant  named  Harvey 
Matusow. 

Matusow  had  been  an  FBI  informant  on  a  number  of  different 
instances,  but  he  had  never  been  brought  out  into  the  open  before 
and  testified  as  a  witness.   He  gave  detailed  testimony  about 
Jenck's  activities  when  he  was  himself  a  member  of  the  Communist 
party  as  an  undercover  agent,  and  he  implicated  Jencks.  Well, 
Jencks  was  convicted.   The  case  was  tried,  as  I  recall,  in  New 
Mexico — yes,  that's  right — and  sometime  after  the  verdict  was 
returned,  Harvey  Matusow  signed  an  affadavit  at  the  instance  of 
the  defense  repudiating  his  testimony,  and  saying  that  his  testi 
mony  about  Jencks  and  his  party  membership  was  untrue. 

Well,  this  brought  on  a  motion  for  a  new  trial  before  the  judge, 
and  there  was  a  highly  formal  hearing  about  which  time  Matusow  was 
telling  the  truth,  with  a  lot  of  evidence  taken,  of  course,  about 
the  circumstances  under  which  he'd  made  this  repudiation.   It 
certainly  caused  great  suspicion  to  arise  about  his  motives  in 
repudiating  his  testimony.   The  net  result  was  that  the  court 
concluded  that  he'd  been  telling  the  truth  the  first  time,  and 
that  his  repudiation  was  false.   So  the  new  trial  was  denied. 


364 


Stein:   Did  they  attempt  to  determine  why  he  changed  his  mind? 

Olney:   Oh,  yes,  sure.   He'd  been  monkeyed  with  by  people  on  the  defense 

side  of  the  thing  and  the  evidence  was  pretty  clear  that  he'd  been 
paid  some  money  for  it,  a  considerable  sum  of  money  for  it.   Anyway, 
that  was  the  conclusion  they  came  to.   Of  course,  the  Jencks  case 
went  up  on  appeal  to  the  Supreme  Court.   The  Supreme  Court  made  a 
decision  which  was  a  rather  landmark  case  on  the  right  of  the 
defendants  to  examine  statements  in  the  hands  of  the  prosecution 
that  had  been  made  by  prosecution  witnesses. 

This  made  the  case  more  famous  than  anything  else,  and  I  won't 
go  into  that  now  except  to  say  that  the  language  of  the  majority 
opinion,  which  was  written  by  Mr.  Justice  Brennan,  we  thought  went 
altogether  too  far.  We  introduced  a  bill  in  the  Congress,  which 
the  Congress  passed,  which  limited  the  effect  of  the  majority 
opinion.   The  bill  which  was  passed  was  in  substantial  conformity 
with  the  concurring  opinion  that  had  been  written  by,  I  believe, 
Mr.  Justice  Burton. 

But  there  were  certain  things  about  this  Matusow  incident  that 
made  a  great  impression  on  me,  although  the  case  was  not  in  my 
bailiwick;  it  was  in  the  internal  security  division.   In  FBI 
reports,  when  they  are  recounting  what  confidential  informants 
will  say,  they  never  use  their  names.   They  will  say  that  it's  a 
confidential  informant,  and  then  usually  they  will  put  in  an 
adjective.   They'll  say  that  it's  an  informant  of  "unknown  relia 
bility,"  or  an  informant  of  "questionable  reliability,"  or  an 
informant  of  "known  reliability." 

Well,  with  Harvey  Matusow,  he  appeared  in  the  reports  given  to 
the  lawyers  trying  the  case  as  an  informant  of  "known  reliability." 
That  was  the  reason  that  government  counsel  went  barging  right 
ahead  without  looking  into  his  character  or  much  else  about  him  as 
a  witness.   But  after  he  had  repudiated  his  testimony,  there  was  a 
loud  to-do,  of  course,  among  the  lawyers:   "Well,  how  come  we 
called  this  guy  anyway?"   It's  all  right  to  say  he  told  the  truth 
the  first  time,  but  it  sure  weakened  his  credibility  to  have  him 
execute  that  affadavit. 

So  they  got  to  wondering,  "Well,  did  the  FBI  give  us  any  indica 
tion  that  there  was  anything  doubtful  about  this  man?"  Tommy 
Tompkins,  who  was  the  assistant  attorney  general  in  charge  of  the 
internal  security  division,  went  up  to  the  files  to  get  the  original 
FBI  reports  in  which  Matusow' s  story  was  given.   There  it  appeared 
that  Matusow  was  described  as  an  informant  of  "known  reliability." 
They  also  found  an  FBI  agent  there  taking  the  file  out,  in  the 
process  of  removing  the  first  page  and  substituting  another  page, 
in  which  Harvey  Matusow  was  described  as  an  informant  of  "unknown 
reliability." 


365 


Olney:   There  was  a  big  stink.   The  Justice  Department  asked  how  come.   The 
Bureau's  explanation  was  that  they  thought  that  this  ought  to  be 
changed  in  order  that  in  the  future  no  one  would  think  that  Matusow 
was  of  "known  reliability."  They  were  actually  in  the  process  of 
trying  to  change  that  record. 

Stein:   Did  you  yourself  write  the  legislation  that  went  to  Congress? 

Olney:    I  worked  on  several  drafts  and  especially  the  final  one  which  was 
enacted.   There  were  several  drafts  proposed,  many  of  which  went 
altogether  too  far  in  the  other  direction.   I  don't  know — we  had 
our  own  version. 

It  was  very  hotly  contested  in  the  Congress.   There  were  all 
kinds  of  debates  and  discussions  and  it  ended  up  as  a  compromise 
piece  of  legislation.   I  always  thought  that  the  result  was  the 
proper  result.   The  FBI  was  very  indignant  with  us  because  we  had 
consented  to  any  kind  of  a  compromise  at  all.   They  just  wanted 
to  reverse  history  and  put  it  back  as  though  there  had  never  been 
any  such  decision.   One  of  the  reasons  why  I  think  it  was  a  decent 
piece  of  legislation  is  because  it's  proved  to  be  entirely  practical 
and  workable.   Nobody's  made  any  complaints  about  it.   That's  why 
it's  still  on  the  books. 

This  is  the  only  piece  of  legislation  that  was  ever  passed 
through  the  Congress  in  my  time  that  anyone  could  claim  altered  a 
decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  with  respect  to  criminal  procedures. 
There's  been  a  lot  of  misunderstanding  about  what  it  was  and  why 
we  got  the  bill  passed,  so  ~L  think  I'd  better  explain  it  in  a  bit 
more  detail. 

When  the  Supreme  Court  reversed  the  Jencks  conviction,  it  was 
by  a  majority  opinion  written  by  Mr.  Justice  Brennan,  in  which  the 
general  language  was  that  the  government  was  required  by  due  process 
to  make  available  to  the  defendant  all  statements  that  were  in  the 
government  files  that  the  defendant  might  have  made  and  other  evi 
dence  that  might  conceivably  bear  on  his  innocence.   The  language 
of  the  opinion  was  broad  and,  we  thought,  quite  ambiguous.   There 
were  only  about,  I  guess,  no  more  than  four  of  the  justices  that 
joined  in  that  opinion. 

Then  there  was  an  opinion  by  Mr.  Justice  Burton;  I  now  do  not 
recall  whether  it  was  a  concurring  or  a  dissenting  opinion.   I 
believe  he  concurred  in  the  result,  but  dissented  from  the  language 
of  Brennan' s  opinion.   He  had  a  different  procedure  outlined  in  his 
opinion,  quite  a  specific  procedure  that  he  thought  ought  to  be 
followed  in  cases  like  this. 


366 


Olney:   Then  there  was  a  dissenting  opinion  written  by  Justice  Tom  Clark, 
which  can  only  be  described  as  a  violent  tirade  against  the  idea 
of  giving  the  defendant  access  to  government  files  under  any  circum 
stances.   It  was  full  of  alarums  about  what  would  happen,  that  this 
was  going  to  lead  to  rummaging  all  through  the  FBI  files,  and  we 
couldn't  have  any  effective  law  enforcement  with  this  kind  of  thing 
going  on.   It  was  a  terrific  blast  at  the  Brennan  opinion.   The 
position  taken  in  general  was  that  the  Court  had  delivered  a  major 
blow  to  law  enforcement  all  over  the  country,  that  it  would  mean 
that  it  would  be  impossible  for  investigative  agencies  to  secure 
statements  from  witnesses  because  there  could  be  no  guarantee  that 
they  could  be  kept  confidential,  and  the  like. 

Now,  that  dissenting  opinion  just  brought  out  every  newspaper 
in  the  country,  you  might  say.   They  printed  headline  articles 
everywhere  about  how  the  Supreme  Court  had  torpedoed  the  FBI  and 
there  was  a  great  deal  of  consternation  about  it.   The  Bureau  itself 
took  it  up.  Hoover  made  statements  that  the  Bureau  was  being 
terribly  handicapped  by  this  kind  of  a  rule  and  things  of  this  kind. 

Well,  if  one  read  the  Brennan  opinion,  which  was  the  statement 
of  the  majority  of  the  Court,  it  didn't  seem  to  us  that  that  was 
what  the  Court  was  talking  about  at  all.  We  thought,  however,  in 
view  of  this  uproar  and  the  vagueness  of  Brennan' s  opinion — it  was 
really  a  poorly  written  opinion — that  the  best  thing  to  do  was  to 
see  if  we  could  get  some  legislation  which  would  put  into  statutory 
form  the  basic  holding,  the  Brennan  opinion,  so  that  it  would  spell 
out  the  procedures  that  were  to  be  followed.   Now,  we  started  to 
draft  a  bill  along  that  line  in  the  department  almost  as  soon  as  we 
read  that  Jencks  decision  and  saw  these  newspaper  headlines. 

Stein:   Would  that  have  been  Brownell's  decision  to  go  ahead? 

Olney:   Yes.   And  that  was  drafted  by  me  and  Wilson  White.  Wilson  White 

was  the  assistant  attorney  general  in  charge  of  the  office  of  legal 
counsel.   The  bill  was  introduced  in  the  House  by  Kenneth  Keating 
and  in  the  Senate  by  Joseph  O'Mahoney.   In  the  Senate,  [James] 
Eastland,  [Estes]  Kefauver,  [John  Marshall]  Butler  of  Maryland, 
[Everett]  Dirksen,  [Matthew]  Neely  of  West  Virginia,  [Charles] 
Potter  of  Michigan,  and  [Alexander]  Wiley  of  Wisconsin  were  co- 
sponsors,  so  that  it  was  a  respectable  group  of  sponsors  that  we 
had  of  a  bipartisan  type.   Then  later  on,  the  White  House  press 
secretary,  James  Hagerty,  announced  that  the  administration  would 
urge  the  passage  of  this  bill. 


367 


Olney:   Well,  this  was  Senate  Bill  S  2377.   Now,  In  Mr.  Walter  F.  Murphy's 
excellent  book  and  study  of  this  matter  entitled  Congress  and  the 
Court  ,  there's  a  completely  accurate  description  of  the  course 
that  that  bill  had  in  the  Senate  and  the  drafting  of  a  number  of 
variations  on  it. 

I  think  it  would  be  worthwhile  to  say  what  the  original  bill, 
number  one,  actually  provided,  and  that  was  that  "no  statements 
or  reports  of  a  witness  or  'person'  other  than  the  defendant  in 
the  possession  of  the  United  States  would  be  given  to  the  defense 
in  a  criminal  trial  except  under  the  narrow  terms  prescribed  in  the 
bill.  After  a  witness  had  testified,  the  defense  could  petition 
the  court  for  reports  or  statements  of  that  witness  bearing  on  the 
events  to  which  he  had  just  testified.   The  trial  judge  would  then 
order  the  government  to  turn  over  to  the  court  all  such  reports 
'as  are  signed  by  the  witness  or  otherwise  adopted  by  him  as 
correct.'   The  judge  would  inspect  these  documents  in  camera, 
decide  what  portions,  if  any,  related  to  the  testimony,  and  give 
those  portions  and  only  those  portions  to  the  defendant.   In  the 
event  the  United  States  chose  not  to  comply  with  the  court  order 
for  the  production  of  such  reports,  the  judge  was  authorized,  in 
his  discretion,  to  strike  the  testimony  of  the  witness  from  the 
record  and  allow  the  trial  to  proceed,  or  'if  the  interests  of 
justice  require, '  to  declare  a  mistrial."** 

Well,  that  was  the  original  bill,  as  we  drafted  it.   Now,  in  Mr. 
Murphy's  book,  the  various  changes  that  were  insisted  on  that  re 
sulted  in  Jencks  bill  number  two  are  related.   Similarly,  he  also 
relates  the  committee  action  in  the  House,  and  then  the  opposition 
that  developed  in  the  Senate,  and  then  the  Jencks  bill  number  three, 
which  was  drafted,  and  the  changes  that  were  made. 

The  changes  that  were  suggested  were — well,  take  Jencks  bill 
number  three,  which  is  the  handiwork  of  George  Arnold  and  Senator 
Joseph  S.  Clark  in  largest  part.   In  that  bill,  the  general  form 
of  S  2377  remained  the  same,  but  there  were  three  major  changes  in 
substance. 


*Walter  F.  Murphy,  Congress  and  the  Court  (Chicago,  1962),  pp.  127- 
154. 

:Murphy,  p.  133. 


154. 
**. 


368 


Olney:   The  first  was  that  the  "rights  of  the  defendant  were  safeguarded  by 
dropping  the  reference  to  'person'  and  restricting  application  of 
the  law  to  statements  or  reports  of  a  'witness.'"*  Now,  as  Murphy 
points  out,  "since  in  legal  parlance  a  corporation  is  a  'person, ' 
this  change  meant  that  the  government  would  not  be  able  to  invoke 
the  Jencks  law  to  deny  a  defendant  the  right  to  examine  business 
records  seized  in  a  tax,  antitrust,  or  similar  prosecution."** 
George  Arnold  was  in  the  law  office  of  his  father,  Thurmond  Arnold, 
who  represented  a  great  many  companies  in  both  tax  and  antitrust 
matters;  that  was  his  field.   George  also  was  Drew  Pearson's  son- 
in-law. 

Well,  I'm  going  back  to  the  Jencks  bill  number  three  again. 
An  additional  protection,  and  one  shielding  even  more  specifically 
any  existing  rights  to  pre-trial  inspection,  was  that  "relevant 
reports  in  the  possession  of  the  government  could  be  ordered  to  be 
produced  not  only  in  accordance  with  the  bill's  terms,  but  also  as 
provided  in  the  Federal  Rules  of  Criminal  Procedure."***  Now,  this 
would  have  meant  an  extension  of  discovery  procedures  in  criminal 
cases.   Discovery  is  a  common  practice  in  civil  litigation;  that  is, 
finding  out  what  the  other  fellow's  got  in  the  way  of  evidence  in 
advance  of  trial.   But  it's  not  used,  was  not  used  at  that  time,  in 
criminal  cases. 

Stein:    It's  been  expanded,  however,  since  then,  hasn't  it? 
Olney:   Yes,  it  has. 

Then  there  was  a  provision  that  relevant  statements  or  reports 
were  to  be  turned  over  directly  to  the  defendant,  unless  the  govern 
ment  claimed  that  they  contained  privileged  information  the  dis 
closure  of  which  would  be  prejudicial  to  the  public  interest.   Then, 
if  that  was  the  claim,  they  would  give  it  to  the  judge  to  examine 
it  in  camera . 

The  third  change  would  enlarge  this  scope  of  the  reports  that 
would  be  made  available.   In  the  original  bill,  the  defense  could 
obtain  only  such  statements  as  were  signed  by  the  witness  or 


*Murphy,  pp.  137-138. 
**Murphy,  p.  138. 
***Murphy,  p.  138. 


369 


Olney:   otherwise  adopted  or  approved  by  him.   But  this  would  allow  also 

those  documents  which  contain  a  recitation  or  the  substance  of  any 
oral  or  written  statement  previously  made  by  the  witness . 

In  other  words,  the  original  bill  would  require  the  production 
only  of  statements  which  could  be  attributed  to  the  witness  in  the 
legal  sense.   But  the  expanded  bill  would  permit,  or  would  require, 
turning  over  hearsay  statements  as  to  what  the  witness  had  said, 
for  example,  in  an  investigator's  statement,  written  up  hours  or 
days  after. 

Well,  this  would  mean  that  a  great  many  reports  as  to  what  the 
witness  was  said  to  have  said  would  have  to  be  turned  over,  whether 
they  had  ever  been  seen  by  the  witness  or  could  properly  be  attrib 
uted  to  him  or  not.   Now,  that  was  the  kind  of  thing  that  bothered 
the  FBI  and  bothered  us  very  much.   We  thought  that  was  going 
altogether  too  far. 

I  ought  to  make  mention  of  the  fact  that  when  these  bills  were 
introduced,  the  civil  rights  legislation  was  in  the  process  of  being 
debated  and  discussed  in  the  House.   So  this  piece  of  legislation 
and  the  civil  rights  bill  and  everything  were  all  going  on  simul 
taneously,  and  it  made  it  frightfully  confusing,  as  you  can  see 
from  the  list  of  sponsors  that  we  had  on  the  Jencks  bill.   There 
were  people  who  were  on  opposite  sides  on  the  civil  rights  matter. 

Stein:   You  must  have  felt  like  a  juggler. 
Olney:   Well,  exactly.   Very  much  so. 

I  don't  think  I  need  to  go  much  farther  than  this  in  this  discus 
sion,  because  Murphy  does  cover  it  so  completely.   He  describes  how, 
on  August  22,  Jencks  bill  number  five  was  circulated  and  this  one 
was  passed  in  the  House.   This  was  different  from  any  of  the  bills 
that  I've  mentioned  to  you.   It  kept  going  back  and  forth,  putting 
in  one  and  taking  out  other  things.   Number  five  was  finally  passed 
in  the  Senate  by  a  voice  vote,  and  then  in  the  House.  What  they 
passed  was  the  Department  of  Justice  bill. 

Stein:   Which  was  number  one? 

Olney:   Yes.  Well,  it  was  what  was  called  Jencks  bill  number  one.   But  this 
was  under  Keating 's  sponsorship.  With  the  two  bills  passed,  in 
different  terms,  they  had  to  have  a  conference  to  try  to  work  it 
out.   They  did  have  a  conference.   We  were  very  much  concerned  that 
Jencks  bill  number  five  not  be  passed,  because  it  had  these  pro 
visions  in  it  that  were  just  totally  unacceptable  and,  we  felt, 
were  quite  dangerous. 


370 


Olney:   To  try  to  make  our  final  pitch,  Wilson  White  and  I  had  lunch  with 
Senators  O'Mahoney,  Eastland,  Dirksen,  and  then  with  Keating  and 
several  of  the  House  conferees  as  well.   Now,  when  we  got  together 
at  that  point,  as  Murphy  relates,  I  tried  to  emphasize  that  there 
were  only  a  few  major  points  of  disagreement.  We  tried  to  get 
Keating  and  O'Mahoney  to  discuss  a  middle  ground  between  the  bills 
which  would  meet  the  Justice  Department  goals.   Then  after  lunch 
Wilson  White  and  I  and  Aubrey  Casque,  who  was  a  counsel  for 
O'Mahoney 's  subcommittee,  got  together  and  in  less  than  an  hour 
we  beat  out  a  compromise  bill  which  seemed  to  meet  their  require 
ments  and  was  satisfactory  to  us.   The  conference  accepted  the  bill 
without  any  problem.   As  a  result  it  was  passed. 

The  bill  as  passed  defined  statements  as  "one,  a  written  state 
ment  made  by  said  witness  and  signed  or  otherwise  approved  by  him, 
or  two,  a  stenographic,  mechanical,  electrical  or  other  recording 
or  transcription  thereof,  which  is  substantially  a  verbatim  recital 
of  an  oral  statement  made  to  an  agent  of  the  government  and  recorded 
contemporaneously  with  the  making  of  such  a  statement."  As  you  can 
see,  that  wording  did  not  include  notes  that  somebody  else  made  on 
their  conversation.  Well,  it  was  passed. 

Now,  the  people  who  were  friendly  to  the  Supreme  Court  always 
contended  that  there  was  nothing  in  that  legislation  that  was 
contrary  to  the  position  taken  by  the  Court  and  the  Brennan  decision. 
Frankly,  that's  the  view  we  always  held.  We  did  not  think  we  were 
changing  the  Court's  decision  from  what  they  had  intended.  We 
thought  the  only  thing  we  were  doing  was  making  it  specific. 

This  had  turned  out  to  be  very,  very  necessary,  because  after 
the  Jencks  decision,  and  before  the  bill  was  passed,  we  had  an 
epidemic  of  rulings  by  judges  from  various  parts  of  the  country  of 
the  most  unreasonable  kind.   On  motion  of  a  defendant  they  would 
order  the  government  to  turn  over  the  whole  government  file,  claim 
ing  that  they  were  required  to  do  this  by  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  and  when  the  government  wouldn't  do  it,  why,  they'd  dismiss 
the  case.   It  was  to  get  judges  like  that  in  line  that  we  thought 
this  legislation  was  necessary. 

There  were  others  who  tried  to  make  it  appear  that  Congress  had 
rebuked  the  Court  and  had  risen  up  in  its  wrath  and  changed  the 
line  of  the  decision,  but  we  couldn't  see  that  that  had  happened. 
Since  that  time  there  has  been  no  agitation  for  any  further  legis 
lation  or  any  reversal  of  the  legislation  or  anything  else.   To  the 
best  of  my  knowledge,  the  courts  and  the  government  and  defense 
counsel  get  along  with  the  so-called  Jencks  Act  without  much 
difficulty.   But  it  was  a  tough  issue  at  the  time,  and  getting  it 
through  the  Congress  was  extremely  complicated  business  because  of 
this  civil  rights  act  which  we  were  also  pressing  at  the  same  time. 


371 


Stein:    I'm  still  a  little  bit  confused.   How  does  the  Jencks  legislation 
differ  from  what  now  goes  on  in  criminal  discovery?   It  seems  to 
me  that  in  criminal  cases  now  a  certain  amount  of  information  is 
released  to  the  defense. 

Olney:   Well,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  information  that's  released  to 

defendants  in  advance  of  trial  now,  but  that  has  not  come  by 

legislation  from  Congress,  and  very  little  of  it  by  discovery 
rules  in  the  court. 

What  has  happened  is  that  the  judges  have  gotten  impatient  with 
the  attorneys  on  both  sides  who  will  go  to  the  length  of  producing 
a  lot  of  evidence  and  taking  up  a  lot  of  court  time  proving  facts 
which  the  other  side  is  ready  to  concede.   So  they  started  in  with 
pre-trial  meetings  of  the  attorneys  in  advance  of  trials.   The 
judge  knocks  their  heads  together  and  says,  "Now,  boys,  what  is 
going  to  be  the  issue  in  this  case?  What's  in  dispute?" 

This  has  led  to  the  U.S.  Attorneys  coming  to  the  realization 
that  it  makes  very,  very  little  sense  to  hold  back  the  gist  of  the 
government's  case  in  advance  of  trial,  that  in  many  instances  it's 
very  much  to  the  government's  advantage  to  disclose  the  case.   Very 
often  it  results  in  a  plea  of  guilty,  when  they  realize  that  the 
thing  is  unbeatable.   But  it's  a  great  time-saver,  anyway,  because 
then  there  can  be  agreement  on  the  things  that  are  in  dispute. 
That's  the  way  discovery  gets  into  criminal  cases  now,  and  it's 
not  through  either  legislation  or  rules,  or  such  as  were  involved 
in  the  Jencks  case. 

Stein:    Speaking  of  the  Justice  Department  drafting  legislation,  someone 

in  one  of  our  other  interviews  mentioned  that  Brownell  himself  was 
very  helpful  in  drafting  legislation. 

Olney:   Oh,  he  is  an  excellent  draftsman.   Yes,  yes.   There  are  many  good 
lawyers  who  are  not.   But  he  is  a  good  draftsman.   During  his 
tenure,  he  would  always  go  over  personally  and  with  care  any 
important  piece  of  legislation,  although  it  might  be  drafted  else 
where  in  the  department.   Often  he  made  improvements. 


The  Harry  Dexter  White  Affair 


Stein:    I  thought  we  might  talk  about  Harry  Dexter  White  now. 

Olney:   All  right.   That  is  a  very  long  story  and  a  peculiar  one.  My  story 
of  the  Harry  Dexter  White  matter  is  quite  different  from  what  you 
would  find  in  magazine  articles  and  in  books  of  the  time  and  so 
forth. 


372 


Olney:    It  all  stemmed  from  our  desire  in  the  criminal  division  to  get  our 
business  under  control.  When  I  got  there,  I  found  that  there  was 
no  real  order  about  anything.   Cases  would  come  in  and  the  file 
would  be  referred  to  a  lawyer.   Nobody  would  be  very  sure  what 
lawyer,  there  was  no  system  for  following  up  on  what  he  did  with 
the  case,  and  folders  would  be  stacked  around  in  offices.   The 
general  appearance  of  lawyers'  offices  was  desks  and  windows  and 
everything  with  files  piled  all  over  them.   Papers  would  come  in 
and  would  go  to  the  lawyers.   They  would  accumulate  in  boxes. 
Sometimes  they'd  get  into  the  proper  folders  and  sometimes  they 
wouldn ' t . 

The  result  was  that  topside  we  had  no  idea  what  was  going  on. 
We  felt  that  we  had  to  know,  we  ought  to  know,  what  was  going  on  in 
all  our  cases,  or  at  least  be  in  a  position  to  get  the  information 
immediately.   Besides,  we  had  found  that  there  were  some  of  these 
files  sitting  out  there  that  were  matters  of  real  importance  that 
we  knew  nothing  about. 

One  of  them  was  this  heavy  investigation  of  Tom  Clark  that  we 
got  on  to  by  finding  the  file  in  one  of  these  huge  piles  of  files 
in  a  lawyer's  office  that  related  to  that  investigation.   There  was 
no  record  anywhere  else  about  it.   There  was  another  inquiry  about 
Judge  Bazelon  and  some  of  the  dealings  that  he  had  had  when  he  was 
assistant  in  charge  of  alien  property. 

Stein:   What  kind  of  judge  was  he? 

Olney:   He  was  on  the  court  of  appeals  of  the  District  of  Columbia. 

Well,  the  best  way  we  could  think  of  to  get  these  cases  in  order 
and  matters  under  control  was  to  insist  that  the  files  be  brought 
up  to  date,  and  then  be  issued  by  the  filing  room  only  when  they 
were  needed.  We  did  this  by  sending  out  first  a  directive  that  the 
appropriate  papers  should  be  put  into  each  of  the  files  and  the 
lawyers  should  send  them  to  the  general  files  and  then  redraw  them 
if  they  needed  them  and  leave  the  ones  that  they  didn't  need  in  the 
general  files  where  they  ought  to  be. 

Well,  that  worked  fairly  well,  but  it  had  to  be  followed  up,  some 
couple  of  weeks  later,  with  a  flat  order  that  no  one  was  to  have  any 
file  in  his  office  or  on  his  desk  on  which  he  wasn't  working  unless 
he  could  account  for  it  in  some  proper  way.   I  don't  remember  the 
terms  of  the  order,  but  I  know  it  was  as  positive  and  had  as  severe 
a  sanction  as  I  dared  put  on  it  about  what  would  happen  if  this 
wasn't  done. 


373 


Stein:    It  seems  to  me  I  remember  in  the  Saturday  Evening  Post  article*  I 
read  that  you  said  that  they  might  as  well  consider  themselves 
fired,  or  something  equally  severe. 

Olney:   It  does  relate  that.   I  believe  that  is  in  that  article  and  I  guess 
maybe  it  was  something  like  that.   I  know  we  made  it  as  severe  as 
we  could,  but  whether  it  was  in  language  like  that  or  not,  I  don't 
recall. 

Anyway,  the  result,  of  course,  was  that  there  was  just  a  complete 
blizzard  of  files  that  hit  the  general  file  room.   All  sorts  of 
stuff  showed  up,  incredible  materials  that  had  been  out  of  the  files 
for  many  years.   Some  of  the  things  had  been  quite  important.   Some 
of  them  had  been  badly  neglected. 

Among  these  many  papers  which  came  in  where  these  very  extra 
ordinary  reports  about  Harry  Dexter  White.   These  reports,  class 
ified  top  secret,  had  been  signed  by  J.  Edgar  Hoover  personally  and 
addressed  to  the  attorney  general,  I  believe,  and  then  to  General 
Vaughan,  who  was  Truman's  secretary,  for  the  attention  of  the 
president.   The  reason  for  that  was  that  Truman  had  asked  Hoover 
not  to  send  stuff  to  him  directly  but  to  send  it  through  General 
Vaughan.   These  reports  described  this  very  large  espionage  ring 
of  Russian  agents.   That  is,  they  knew  who  the  Russian  connection 
was  and  there  was  a  whole  ring  of  people  in  government,  particularly 
in  the  Treasury  Department,  who  were  supplying  documents  and  things 
of  this  kind  for  transmission  to  the  Russians.   Harry  Dexter  White 
was  one  of  them. 

White  was  Henry  Morgenthau's  number-one  man  in  the  Treasury 
Department.   At  the  time  this  report  was  being  written,  he  was 
under  consideration  for  appointment  as  director  of  the — it  wasn't 
the  World  Bank,  but  it's  something  similar  to  that;  it's  an  inter 
national  banking  organization. 

Stein:   The  International  Monetary  Fund. 

Olney:   Yes,  the  International  Monetary  Fund:  that  was  it.  Well,  that  fund 
had  complete  control  over  the  decisions  that  were  to  be  made  about 
the  expenditures  of  American  funds  in  the  rebuilding  of  Europe.   To 
have  a  communist  agent  in  charge  of  that  was  certainly  not  in  our 
interest. 


Sidney  Shalett,  "How  to  Be  a  Crime  Buster,"  Saturday  Evening  Post, 
March  19,  1955,  p.  25.  [See  Appendix  F. ] 


374 


Olney:   The  reports  were  not  vague.   They  were  very  specific  not  only  about 
White,  but  about  all  the  others  that  were  named  in  them  and  what 
their  functions  were  and  what  their  activities  had  been  and  the 
like.  Well,  the  remarkable  thing  about  the  matter  was  that  White 
had  been  appointed  by  President  Truman  to  the  position  of  executive 
director  of  the  International  Monetary  Fund  after  he  had  seen  and 
notwithstanding  these  reports  that  established  pretty  conclusively 
that  White  was  an  espionage  agent. 

I  couldn't  understand  why  something  hadn't  happened  when  this 
information  got  over  to  the  White  House.   I  took  it  up  with  Hoover 
and  showed  him  the  report,  and  he  gave  me  a  full  account  of  how  it 
had  been  prepared  and  who  the  informant  was.   There  was  never  any 
doubt  in  their  minds,  or  in  mine  either,  about  her  reliability  and 
accuracy.   The  tip-off  came  from  a  woman  who  was  an  intermediary 
between  the  Russian  agent  and  the  rest  of  these  people,  who  had 
changed  her  mind  about  Stalinist  communism  and  had  informed  the 
FBI  about  this  ring.   They  had  investigated  thoroughly  and  found 
out  that  her  story  was  entirely  true. 

Well,  Hoover  said  that  he  had  discussed  it  with  Tom  Clark  when 
he  was  attorney  general  and  that  he  had  sent  the  reports  to  Truman. 
But  nothing  was  done.   He  was  sure  that  Truman  had  seen  it.   No 
action  had  been  taken.  He  had  no  explanation  of  why  it  hadn't  been 
taken . 

Well,  I  thought  that  we  ought  to  try  to  find  out  what  had  happened 
to  these  reports  in  the  department.  We  made  a  quiet  inquiry  as 
thoroughly  as  we  could  to  try  to  find  out  who  in  the  department  had 
had  this  matter  on  his  desk  all  these  years.  We  never  could  find 
out.  We  never  did  know.   But  it  was  there  on  somebody's  desk. 

I  then  made  out  a  memorandum,  myself,  to  the  attorney  general 
and  transmitted  the  whole  thing  to  him  so  that  he  would  be  fully 
informed  about  this.   I  can't  recall  that  I  discussed  it  with  any 
body  excepting  him  and  Bill  Rogers.   I  think  we  all  felt  that  it 
was  too  explosive  for  general  discussion  anywhere,  and  it  was  too 
mysterious  as  far  as  we  were  concerned.  We  were  just  baffled  as 
to  how  this  appointment  could  have  happened  in  the  face  of  informa 
tion  of  this  sort. 

I  don't  remember  the  sequence  of  events — I  mean  the  intervals 
of  time — but  it  was  somewhere  not  long  after  I  had  turned  this 
over  to  Mr.  Brownell  that  he  was  to  make  a  speech  before  a  business 
men's  club  in  Chicago.   Here  again  I'm  going  entirely  on  recollec 
tion.  Mr.  Brownell  tells  me  that  my  recollection  is  at  fault,  but 
I  don't  know  whether  it's  at  fault.  My  recollection  is  that  I 
wrote  that  speech  and  put  this  material  in  it. 


375 


Olney:    It  was  earthshaking .   It  was  like  setting  off  an  atomic  bomb  when 
it  happened.   I  always  felt  very  apologetic  for  having  put  that  in 
the  speech,  because  I  know  that  I  did  not  discuss  it  with  him  in 
advance.   I  thought  that  I  was  simply  drafting  a  talk  that  he  might 
make,  that  he  might  use,  supplying  material.   I  had  no  idea  that 
he  would  use  anything  of  mine  without  a  very  complete  revision.  My 
recollection  is  that  what  he  gave  was  what  I  had  written. 

On  top  of  that,  I  thought  the  timing  was  terrible.   It  was  the 
wrong  place  and  the  wrong  period  of  time;  it  was  just  before  an 
election.   Mr.  Brownell  is  an  astute  man.   To  let  off  a  thing  like 
that  before  an  election  doesn't  help;  he  knows  that.   Lots  of 
people  think  it  does,  but  usually  it  has  a  bad  reaction.   I  don't 
think,  if  he  had  really  considered  this  in  advance,  that  he  would 
have  done  it  at  that  time  and  place.   But  when  I  try  to  apologize 
to  him  for  this,  he  won't  accept  it.   He  said,  "Warren,  that  isn't 
the  way  it  happened."  He  said,  "Don't  worry  yourself  about  it. 
You  didn't  do  anything  out  of  line." 

Stein:   Has  he  told  you  how  it  did  happen? 

Olney:   No,  that's  all  he  said  to  me  about  it.  Well,  anyway,  it  went  off 
with  a  bang.   I  was  horrified,  not  at  the  public  revelation,  but  I 
thought  that  the  timing  of  it  was  just  unfortunate. 

Stein:   Yes,  I  think  that  Drew  Pearson  said  something  in  his  Diaries. 

Olney:   Yes,  he  does,  sure.   He  draws  the  inference  that  that  was  planned 

and  done  deliberately  in  order  to  affect  the  elections.   Well,  Drew 
Pearson  had  a  son-in-law,  George  Arnold,  who  was  running  in  Califor 
nia  for  the  Congress  on  the  Democratic  ticket  against  a  Republican, 
and  his  Republican  opponent  used  this  stuff  against  him.   So  Pearson 
came  to  this  conclusion,  but  that  doesn't  mean  that  that  was  the 
reason  that  it  was  done.   I  only  know  that  this  is  the  way  the  thing 
came  to  light,  and  that  Mr.  Brownell  thought  it  ought  to  be  given  to 
the  public . 

But  another  thing  about  it  that  appalled  him  at  the  time  was  that 
the  papers  twisted  his  language  so  that  it  sounded  as  though  he  was 
questioning  the  loyalty  of  Harry  Truman.   Well,  he  never  had  any 
intention  of  doing  that.   He  was  very,  very  upset  to  see  how  these 
remarks  had  been  used.   He  didn't  know  why  there  hadn't  been  some 
action  taken.   But  none  of  us  ever  had  the  slightest  doubt  that 
Harry  Truman  was  as  patriotic  as  we  were  or  anyone  else.   To  have 
this  come  out  was  awful. 


376 


Olney:   Of  course,  Truman  flared  up  the  moment  that  happened  and  he  made 
some  very  unwise  statements.   He  said,  right  off  the  cuff,  when 
they  asked  him,  that  he  had  never  seen  the  FBI  reports.   Then  he 
changed  his  account  and  said  that  he  had  let  the  nomination  go 
through  because  he  thought  that  was  the  best  way  to  "trap"  White. 
Well,  that's  a  lot  of  nonsense.   It  didn't  make  any  sense. 

A  curious  incident  with  Governor  James  Byrnes  of  South  Carolina, 
Truman's  former  secretary  of  state,  may  be  worth  mentioning  here. 
You  will  recall  that  after  Mr.  Brownell's  Chicago  speech,  when  Harry 
Truman  was  confronted  by  the  press,  he  first  said  that  he  had  never 
read  the  FBI  reports  on  Harry  Dexter  White,  as  Mr.  Brownell  had 
implied  that  he  must  have  done  in  his  speech.   Later  on  he  changed 
his  account,  saying  that  his  memory  had  been  at  fault  and  that  he 
had  indeed  read  the  reports  and  had  decided  to  go  ahead  with  White's 
appointment  notwithstanding  in  order  to  permit  the  FBI  to  catch  him. 

But  there  was  an  interval  of  some  time  between  the  time  that 
Truman  denied  ever  seeing  the  reports  and  his  subsequent  admission 
that  he  had  read  them.   During  that  interim  period  I  received  a 
telephone  call  from  Governor  Byrnes.   I  had  never  met  the  man.  He 
said  he  did  not  want  to  talk  to  Mr.  Brownell  but  wanted  to  speak 
to  me  because  I  was  the  assistant  in  charge  of  the  criminal  division. 
He  wanted  me  to  tell  Mr.  Brownell  that  Mr.  Brownell  was  absolutely 
right  in  believing  that  President  Truman  must  have  read  the  FBI 
reports  on  Harry  Dexter  White;  that  duplicates  of  the  reports  had 
been  sent  to  him  as  secretary  of  state  at  the  same  time  they  were 
sent  to  President  Truman;  that  he  had  written  a  note  to  President 
Truman  telling  him  that  he  considered  the  reports  a  matter  of  major 
importance  and  they  certainly  should  be  read  by  him;  and  that  later 
on  he  had  discussed  the  reports  with  President  Truman  as  to  what 
should  be  done  about  the  pending  appointment  of  Harry  Dexter  White 
to  be  the  American  director  of  the  International  Monetary  Fund.   He 
wanted  me  to  tell  Mr.  Brownell  that  he  was  willing  to  testify  to 
this  if  necessary. 

Shortly  afterwards  President  Truman  issued  his  second  statement 
to  the  effect  that  his  memory  had  been  at  fault  and  that  he  had 
indeed  read  the  FBI  reports  but  had  decided  to  go  ahead  with  the 
appointment  of  Harry  Dexter  White  notwithstanding. 

Well,  one  of  the  internal  security  committees,  I  think  it  was, 
called  a  public  hearing. 

Stein:    It  was  the  Senate. 


377 


Olney:   Well,  they  had  Mr.  Brownell  up  there  to  explain  all  this  and  give 

his  story,  and  this  is  the  document  that  I  handed  you,  which  is  his 
testimony  before  the  Senate  subcommittee.*  This  is  what  he  read. 

It's  one  of  those  things  that's  bound  to  come  to  light;  it's 
bound  to  become  public.   But  none  of  us  have  ever  understood  at  all 
why  no  action  was  taken.  We  don't  know  whether  it  was  that  Truman 
never- read  the  reports.   Truman  had  an  intense  dislike  for  Hoover 
and,  if  you  will  read  this  recent  book,  Plain  Speaking**,  the  brush- 
off  that  he  gives  Hoover  is  typical.   He  always  disliked  Hoover.   He 
thought  Hoover  was  messing  around  in  a  lot  of  things  that  weren't 
his  business.   And  it  may  be  that  he  just  wouldn't  read  it.   But, 
my  goodness,  Jimmy  Byrnes  read  it  and  Tom  Clark  read  it  and,  accord 
ing  to  Drew  Pearson  in  his  Diaries,  [T.  Lamar]  Caudle  knew  about  it. 
And  all  of  these  people  knew  about  it  at  the  time  of  White's  nomina 
tion  and  appointment. 

Stein:   And  none  of  them  spoke  out  about  it? 

Olney:   No,  none  of  them  spoke  out  about  it.   They  seemed  to  get  the  informa 
tion  there  too  late,  or  something.   I  don't  understand  it. 

Now,  it's  worth  noting  that  many  of  the  others  that  were  named  in 
that  report  besides  White  were  later  proved  to  be  communist  agents. 

Stein:   What  was  the  upshot  of  the  whole  affair,  after  Brownell  gave  his 
speech  and  there  was  all  this  to-do? 

Olney:   Well,  White  was  dead,  and  there  wasn't  much  that  did  happen  from  it. 
Most  of  the  others  had  gotten  out  of  the  country.   Laughlin  Currie, 
I  think  it  was,  went  to  Venezuela  and  became  an  advisor  to  the 
Venezuelan  government  and  wouldn't  come  back. 

Stein:   Nathan  Gregory  Silvermaster  was  a  name  that  appeared  often. 


"Remarks  by  Attorney  General  Herbert  Brownell,  Jr.  to  Subcommittee 
of  the  U.S.  Senate  Committee  on  Internal  Security,"  November  17, 
1953.   On  deposit  in  The  Bancroft  Library. 

":*Merle  Miller,  Plain  Speaking.   An  Oral  Biography  of  Harry  S. 
Truman  (New  York,  1974) . 


378 


Olney:   Yes,  he  was  an  important  figure,  but  I  don't  remember  what  happened 
to  him.   I  just  don't.   I  know  that  those  who  were  available  were 
all  called  before  one  committee  or  another.   All  of  them  took  the 
Fifth  Amendment.   I  don't  recall  that  any  of  them  were  successfully 
prosecuted.   The  principal  witness  was  Elizabeth  Bentley,  and  I 
can't  recall  that  we  ever  used  her  as  a  witness. 

Stein:   Was  she  an  informant? 

Olney:   Yes,  she  was  the  one  who  was  an  informant.   I  think  she's  dead  now. 

Stein:   Had  she  been  used  in  other  cases  also? 

Olney:   Well,  she  knew — I  think  I'm  correct  in  this — Alger  Hiss  and  Whittaker 
Chambers  and  worked  with  them  too,  and  I  believe  that  she  may  have 
testified  in  the  Hiss  case,  for  all  I  know.   I'm  not  sure.   No,  I 
guess  she  didn't,  because  the  Hiss  case  was  during  the  Democratic 
days  and  I  don't  think  she'd  been  uncovered  at  the  time  that  this 
report  came  to  light.   So,  I'm  too  hazy  to  be  exact  on  this. 

Stein:   At  the  end  of  Brownell's  remarks  to  the  Senate  Internal  Security 

Subcommittee,  he  offers  a  couple  of  proposals  for  new  legislation. 

Olney:   Yes,  the  first  was  to  allow  the  government  to  use  wiretap  evidence. 
That  was  never  passed.   The  next  was  to  allow  grants  of  immunity  to 
witnesses.   There  was  eventually  legislation  on  that  subject.   I 
don't  think  it  was  passed  while  he  was  attorney  general.   I  think  it 
was  the  Kennedy  administration  that  passed  that. 


Senator  Joseph  McCarthy 

Stein:    Speaking  of  subversive  activities,  did  you  run  into  Senator  McCarthy 
much?  Did  you  have  many  dealings  with  him? 

Olney:   Yes.   I  didn't  have  any  dealings  with  him  personally,  but  there  were 
anti-McCarthy  groups  in  the  Congress  who  tried  to  keep  Senator 
McCarthy  from  being  seated  and  were  opposing  him  in  every  way,  and 
they  had  accumulated  a  whole  mass  of  evidence  which  they  wanted  to 
use  against  him  in  the  Congress.   Drew  Pearson,  in  fact,  recounts 
this.   Then  they  all  got  cold  feet  and  there  wasn't  a  single  one  of 
them  who  dared  to  protest  his  sitting. 

They  had  turned  this  over  to  Attorney  General  McGranery,  who  was 
in  office,  so  that  was  one  of  the  things  that  I  inherited.   They 
used  to  come  in — I  can't  remember  who  they  all  were,  but  I  had 
numerous  visits  from  many  of  them — and  they  were  urging  us  to  take 
action  against  McCarthy. 


379 


Olney:   What  they  had  was  evidence  of  McCarthy's  collecting  money.   He'd  go 
out  and  make  speeches  and  talk  about  a  "cause"  or  something  like 
that  and  there  would  be  contributions  that  would  pour  in,  all  kinds 
of  them,  mail  and  everything  else.   Then  they  had  dug  out  the  fact 
that  McCarthy  had  not  used  these  monies  in  any  particular  cause, 
but  he  was  using  them  personally.   He  was  buying  and  selling  on  the 
commodity  market,  and  other  ventures  of  that  kind,  which,  if  these 
were  trust  funds  in  any  way,  would  have  been  embezzlement.   They 
wanted  us  to  proceed  on  that. 

Well,  we  would  have  been  willing  to  proceed,  and  we  always  told 
them  so.   But  where 's  the  trust;  for  what  purpose  were  these  monies 
donated?  And  who  is  complaining  that  the  money  that  he  gave  is  being 
misused?  When  you  talked  to  the  people  who  gave  the  money,  they 
said,  "Well,  that's  fine,  we  gave  him  the  money  without  any  strings 
attached .   He  can  use  it  for  anything  he  wants .  We  believe  in  the 
man.   If  he  can  use  it  on  the  commodity  market  and  make  more  money, 
well,  that's  great."   [laughter]   You  can't  make  a  case,  not  on  that 
kind  of  evidence. 

Then  we  also  had  just  as  many  complaints  from  the  McCarthy  people, 
who  were  trying  to  persuade  us  to  take  action  against  Senator 
[William]  Benton  and  Senator  Chester  Bowles.   They  had  complaints 
about  their  activities,  things  they  had  done  to  try  to  get  McCarthy, 
that  they  claimed  were  illegal.   And  it  was  the  same  sort  of  thing. 
They  had  actions  that  they  didn't  like,  but  they  weren't  provable 
criminal  cases.   So  we  never  took  any  action  on  them.   We  did 
investigate  as  best  we  could  and  as  far  as  we  could  to  try  to  find 
out  and  be  sure  that  we  had  all  the  facts,  but  we  didn't  bring  any 
case,  because  there  wasn't  any  evidence  to  make  a  provable  criminal 
case. 

What  else  do  you  have  on  McCarthy? 

Stein:  The  Post  article  mentioned  that  there  was  some  kind  of  suggestion 
of  election  fraud  in  Senator  Tydings *  failure  to  be  re-elected  in 
Maryland  in  1950. 

Olney:   Well,  that's  true.   There  had  been  a  very  adverse  political  pamphlet 
put  out  against  Tidings  which — I  don't  remember  if  it  was  unsub 
scribed  or  falsely  subscribed;  I  think  it  was  the  latter — but  the 
man  who  was  responsible  for  its  publication  and  printing  was  prose 
cuted  and  convicted.   That's  as  far  as  the  evidence  would  go.  We 
couldn't  develop  it  any  farther  than  that.   But  we  never  had  any 
doubt  that  the  person  really  behind  it  was  probably  McCarthy  and 
the  other  people  associated  with  him.   But  the  fellow  who  was 
convicted  wouldn't  talk,  and  we  had  no  other  evidence.   He  took 
the  rap  and  went  to  prison  for  it. 


380 


Stein:   That's  a  frustrating  situation.   I  guess  it  comes  up  again  and  again 
in  prosecuting. 

Olney:   Yes,  it  does.   You  can  see  from  that  kind  of  situation  that  there 
are  certainly  instances  where  it's  thoroughly  justified  for  a 
prosecutor  to  offer  immunity,  either  partial  or  sometimes  even 
total,  to  a  man  who  is  the  immediate  perpetrator  of  an  offense  to 
get  the  testimony  against  the  ones  who  are  higher  up,  because  there 
is  no  other  way  of  doing  it.   Of  course,  when  you  do  that,  you  have 
to  be  very,  very  careful  that  what  you're  getting  is  a  true  story. 
That  means  that  even  after  you  get  the  story,  it  has  to  be  one 
which  can  be  corroborated  by  other,  outside  evidence,  quite  aside 
from  this  fellow's  story,  showing  not  merely  that  the  events  took 
place,  but  that  they  were  criminal  in  nature,  before  you're  justi 
fied  in  going  ahead  with  a  deal  of  that  kind . 

Stein:    I  think  that  the  article  also  mentioned  that  there  was  a  question 
of  income  tax  evasion  with  McCarthy. 

Olney:   Well,  on  that  I  have  no  knowledge.   That  would  have  been  in  the 
tax  division.   I  didn't  even  remember  that  there  was  any  such 
allegation.  Perhaps  so. 

Stein:   What  was  the  general  feeling  then  in  the  Justice  Department  about 
what  would  happen  to  McCarthy? 

Olney:   Well,  I  don't  think  that  there  was  any  uniform  feeling  about  him. 
I  know  that  Herbert  Brownell,  William  Rogers,  and  all  of  the 
assistants  including  me  absolutely  detested  the  man.  We  just 
loathed  the  fellow.  We  couldn't  understand  why  President 
Eisenhower  was  not  more  outspoken,  not  more  effective  in  dealing 
with  him. 

But  there  was  one  man  in  the  department  who  used  to  say  that  he 
was  against  McCarthy,  although  he  would  sometimes  say  that  he 
thought  McCarthy  was  working  towards  pretty  good  ends  but  he  didn't 
like  his  methods.   That  was  J.  Edgar  Hoover.   He  used  to  try  to 
lead  us  to  believe  that  he  was  not  in  sympathy  with  McCarthy.   But 
after  McCarthy's  death,  his  house  on  Third  Street  came  up  for  sale 
and  Mrs.  Olney  and  I  bought  that  house.   And  it  still  had  all  the 
McCarthy  furnishings  in  it  when  we  went  to  look  at  it.   And  on  one 
wall  were  hanging  all  these  medals  that  he  squeezed  out  of  the 
marine  corps . 

Stein:   Yes,  I  read  about  that. 


381 


Olney:   And  on  another  was  an  autographed  portrait  of  J.  Edgar  Hoover,  with 
a  very,  very  strong  personal  endorsement.   [laughter]   There  was 
talk  at  the  time  that  Hoover  was  furnishing  information  to  McCarthy 
and  the  committee.   I  don't  know  whether  he  was  doing  that  or  not. 
We  used  to  wonder  where  McCarthy  got  some  of  his  information,  but 
there  was  nothing  that  turned  up,  even  circumstantially,  that  would 
substantiate  those  rumors. 

Stein:   What  did  you  feel  would  eventually  be  his  fate? 

Olney:   Well,  after  the  hearing  on  McCarthy,  he  was  so  terribly  discredited 
that  he  no  longer  was  of  any  importance;  he  just  didn't  cut  any 
figure  at  all;  nobody  paid  any  attention  to  him.   The  newspapermen 
wouldn't  even  bother  to  go  to  see  him.   McCarthy  would  have  hand 
outs  and  he'd  have  to  press  them  on  newsmen.   He  was  just  a  dead 
duck. 

It  was  an  education  for  me,  the  effect  of  that  hearing.   I  had 
no  idea  that  a  vote  of  censureship  would  have  such  an  effect.   But 
it  just  pricked  the  balloon. 

Stein:   Did  you  find  anything  else  in  the  house?   I  assume  you  bought  it. 

Olney:   Yes,  we  did  buy  it.  Well,  no.   He  had  a  mortgage  on  the  thing  from 
one  of  the  insurance  companies  which  had  some  pretty  unusual  terms 
in  it.   He  could  occupy  it  for  so  many  years  without  paying  anything 
on  the  mortgage  at  all,  and  then  the  payments  were  nominal  for  two 
or  three  years  or  something,  and  then  the  whole  thing  became  due. 
I  knew  about  that  because  we  took  over  the  mortgage.   However,  the 
time  when  you  didn't  have  to  pay  anything  had  already  expired  by  the 
time  that  we  got  there,  so  that  we  did  not  have  the  advantage  of 
those  very  unusual  provisions. 

I  don't  think  they  were  in  the  house  for  very  long.   It  was  an 
old  row  house  that  had  been  gutted  and  then  done  over  again  com 
pletely.   It  had  a  couple  of  fireplaces  in  it  in  which  no  fire  had 
ever  been  built,  for  example,  so  I  don't  think  they  were  there  for 
very  long . 


The  Smith  Act  Prosecutions 


Stein:    I  have  one  more  question  about  the  internal  security  matters, 
you  involved  much  with  any  of  the  Smith  Act  prosecutions? 


Were 


382 


Olney:   Well,  the  main  prosecution  on  the  Smith  Act  was  before  my  time.  We 
had  one  or  two  cases  against  top  communists  who  had  been  apprehended 
after  the  main  Smith  Act  case,  and  they  were  tried. 

One  of  them  was  a  man  who  was  picked  up  out  here  at  Twain  Harte 
in  California. 

Stein:   Oh,  yes,  I  remember  reading  about  that. 

Olney:   That  was  one  of  our  cases,  and  there  were  a  half  a  dozen  or  more 
members  of  the  party.   But  I  think  they  were  what  you  might  call 
second-  or  third-rank  members  of  the  party  who  were  prosecuted  in 
my  day. 

Stein:    I  gather  that  the  people  who  were  prosecuted  were  prosecuted  for 

conspiracy  to  violate  the  Smith  Act.   I  wonder  why  conspiracy  was  a 
part  of  the  charge. 

Olney:   Well,  I  can't  tell  you.   I  don't  even  recall  that  they  were  charged 
with  conspiracy.  ,But  maybe  they  were. 

On  cases  like  that,  I  left  it  up  to  the  staff  members  to  handle 
them.   I  had  confidence  in  them  by  that  time.   That  was  their  field. 
They  knew  these  cases  and  this  was  familiar  territory.   They'd  been 
over  them  before  and  they  were  the  same  kind  of  charges  that  had 
been  presented  before  against  others,  so  that  I  did  not  know  these 
cases  in  the  detail  that  I  knew  many  others,  or  knew  the  first  few 
cases  that  we  had  anything  to  do  with. 

But  during  the  time  that  I  was  assistant  attorney  general,  on 
conspiracy  cases  I  entertained  misgivings  about  the  way  the  charge 
of  conspiracy  was  being  used  and  treated.   I  never  had  any  compunc 
tions  about  using  a  conspiracy  charge,  but  I  did  have  misgivings 
about,  or  rather  definite  ideas  about,  how  it  ought  to  be  pleaded. 

The  trouble  with  most  conspiracy  indictments  is  that  they're  so 
vague.   It  is  extremely  difficult  for  the  man  on  the  receiving  end 
of  the  thing  to  know  with  precision  what  it  is  he's  charged  with; 
they're  in  such  general  terms.  Without  knowing  that,  it's  difficult 
or  impossible  to  prepare  adequately  to  meet  it. 

In  California  I  had  used  conspiracy  counts  from  time  to  time, 
but  we  had  an  entirely  different  system  for  pleading  them.  We 
would  charge  the  conspiracy,  the  agreement,  in  general  terms,  but 
we  always  made  a  deliberate  effort  to  describe  the  agreement  with 
such  precision  and  the  acts  that  were  done  to  carry  it  out,  that 
the  whole  picture  was  there.  We  might  allege  the  mailing  of  a 
letter  or  the  making  of  a  telephone  call  or  something  like  that  as 
an  overt  act,  but  we  just  didn't  leave  that  hanging  in  midair.   It 


383 


Olney:   was  apparent  what  the  relation  of  the  mailing  of  the  letter  or  the 

phone  call  was  to  the  carrying  out  of  the  purposes  of  the  agreement. 
We  felt  that  was  the  only  fair  way  to  charge  conspiracy.   This  was 
in  the  district  attorney's  office,  and  in  the  state  attorney 
general's  office,  but  the  federal  method  of  pleading  is  entirely 
different. 

The  man  who  has  always  claimed  credit  for  that  type  of  pleading 
is  Judge  William  J.  Campbell  of  the  U.S.  District  Court  in  the 
Northern  District  of  Illinois.   He  had  been  district  attorney  there, 
and  he  had  drawn  the  indictments  against  Moses  Annenberg  and  others, 
and  then  he  was  brought  to  New  York  at  the  time  that  Judge  Manton 
and  some  of  the  other  federal  judges  were  accused  of  bribery  and 
other  crimes  of  this  sort.   He  drafted  conspiracy  indictments 
against  them  for  accepting  bribes  and  defrauding  the  United  States. 
The  bribe-taker  and  the  bribe-giver  would  be  charged  with  conspiracy 
to  defraud  the  United  States  out  of  its  honest  services  of  the 
judge,  and  some  otherwise  innocent-appearing  act,  such  as  mailing 
a  letter  or  making  a  telephone  call,  would  be  alleged  as  an  overt 
act  to  carry  out  the  purpose  of  the  conspiracy.   There  would  be 
nothing  more  in  the  way  of  details  or  particulars. 

I  think  that  the  government  would  avoid  a  lot  of  difficulty  with 
their  conspiracy  cases  if  they  would  develop  a  more  explicit  form 
of  pleading  the  conspiracy  count.   But  that's  only  my  own  opinion 
on  it. 


A  Question  of  Federal  Jurisdiction 


Stein:   Do  you  have  anything  more  to  say  about  internal  security? 

Olney:   No,  but  there  are  some  other  things,  though,  I  failed  to  mention 
that  I  think  I  should. 

I  hadn't  been  in  the  office  very  long  before  Mr.  James  V. 
Bennett,  the  director  of  the  Bureau  of  Prisons,  came  to  see  me. 
He  explained  that  the  Bureau  of  Prisons  was  receiving  a  very  large 
number  of  juveniles  for  automobile  theft  charges  and  was  having 
to  incarcerate  them  as  ordered  by  the  courts,  when  he  thought 
their  cases  would  be  very  much  better  taken  care  of  if  they  were 
charged  with  automobile  theft  locally  in  the  state  courts,  under 
state  law. 


384 


Olney:   He  pointed  out  that  these  juveniles  charged  in  federal  courts  more 

often  than  not  had  to  be  transported  several  hundred  miles  from  their 
homes  to  serve  their  terms,  where  they  were  without  friends  or  rela 
tives  or  anything  else.  When  they  were  released,  often  probation 
offices  were  not  located  anywhere  near  their  homes,  so  that  it  was 
very  difficult,  very  expensive  to  supervise  them.   He  pointed  out 
to  me  that  the  reason  for  this  was  the  provisions  in  the  U.S. 
Attorneys '  handbook. 

The  U.S.  Attorneys  are  supplied  with  an  official  handbook  that  is 
broken  down  into  chapters  and  subjects  and  gives  appropriate  forms. 
It  also  states  what  the  general  policies  of  the  department  are. 
Under  automobile  thefts,  in  that  section,  the  handbook  states  as 
policy  that  as  many  of  these  automobile  theft  cases  as  possible 
should  be  charged  in  the  federal  rather  than  the  state  court. 
There's  some  language  in  there  that  "experience  has  shown  that  some 
of  the  worst  gangsters  in  the  country  got  their  start  as  automobile 
thieves"  and  so  forth. 

Well,  my  memory  goes  back  long  enough  so  that  I  could  remember 
when  the  statute  was  passed  first  giving  the  federal  government 
jurisdiction  in  automobile  theft  cases.   The  purpose  of  that  statute 
as  advanced  in  the  Congress  at  that  time  was  to  make  it  possible  to 
get  at  interstate  rings  of  automobile  thieves,  people  who  were 
stealing  automobiles  in  one  state  and  removing  them  to  other  states 
and  repainting  them  and  changing  motor  numbers  and  that  kind  of 
thing.   It  was  very,  very  difficult  for  a  state  to  try  to  get  at 
thieves  and  receivers  in  some  other  state  many  hundred  miles  away. 
It  was  never  intended  at  that  time  that  the  federal  government 
would  do  the  job  of  policing  the  ordinary  joyriding  case,  where 
somebody  just  picks  up  a  car  for  a  ride  or  something  of  this  kind. 
So  I  was  quite  amenable  to  this  change  in  policy,  and  we  redrafted 
the  section  for  the  U.S.  Attorneys'  handbook. 

The  gist  of  our  redraft  was  that  the  federal  government  should 
not  assume  jurisdiction  in  automobile  theft  cases  unless  it  appeared 
that  the  operations  of  an  interstate  theft  ring  were  involved,  or 
some  other  major  interstate  criminal  activity  was  involved,  or  some 
other  unusual  and  special  reason.   Having  drafted  that,  we  sent  it 
up  to  the  deputy  attorney  general's  office  for  consideration  there. 

They  sent  a  copy  of  this  draft  over  to  the  FBI.  You'd  have 
thought  an  earthquake  had  hit  the  building.   The  FBI  was  absolutely 
outraged  at  the  thought  of  any  such  change,  and  they  were  very, 
very  strenuous  in  their  objecting  to  it  and  succeeded  in  having  me 
overruled  out  of  hand . 


385 


Olney:   Then  I  found  that  Mr.  Bennett  had  made  this  same  suggestion  to  one 
or  two  of  my  predecessors  with  the  same  result.   He  hadn't  told  me 
this.   [laughter]   But  it  took  some  little  time  before  I  appreciated 
the  reasons  for-  this .   And  it  has  to  do  with  FBI  public  relations . 

The  Bureau  puts  out  an  annual  report  around  New  Year's  with  a 
list  of  their  achievements  for  the  year.   One  of  the  things  to  which 
they  always  point  with  great  pride  is  the  number  of  automobile  theft 
cases  which  the  Bureau  has  handled,  and  that  is  always  going  up. 
Then  they  put  in  the  number  of  automobiles  recovered  and  they  put  in 
the  value  of  these  automobiles  recovered.   I'm  sure  they  didn't  get 
those  out  of  the  Blue  Book.   [laughter]   They  were  the  initial 
prices;  the  figure  is  fantastic.   But  it  makes  it  a  very  fine  story, 
indeed,  on  this. 

Stein:    It  gives  them  a  good  batting  average. 

Olney:   Yes,  it  does,  and  they  use  that  very  consistently.   They  use  it  in 
the  Congress  all  the  time  on  appropriations. 

Now,  the  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  out  of  those  thousands  of 
cases  that  they  have,  there  are  only  a  small  fraction  where  the 
arrests  are  ever  made  by  federal  agents.   In  practically  all  those 
cases  the  arrests  are  made  by  local  police  departments  or  local 
sheriffs  or  the  state  highway  patrol  or  something  like  that. 
Having  made  the  arrest  and  got  the  car,  the  local  officers  call  up 
the  FBI,  who  come  down  and  have  the  charge  filed  in  the  federal 
court  and  then,  of  course,  take  credit  for  the  arrest,  for  every 
thing  else  on  it.   Not  only  does  it  irk  me,  but  it's  one  of  the 
things  that  has  tended  to  sour  the  relations  between  the  Bureau  and 
local  law  enforcement  agencies,  because  they're  well  aware  of  the 
fact  that  the  Bureau  never  gives  them  credit  for  the  part  they  play 
in  those  cases. 

But  the  point  where  it  gets  serious  is  on  the  matter  of  the 
treatment  of  offenders,  because  Mr.  Bennett,  in  my  judgment,  is 
entirely  correct  that  most  of  these  juveniles  would  be  handled  much 
better  locally  than  they  would  be  by  federal  authorities  who  have 
such  spare  resources  for  supervising  them  in  their  own  communities. 
But  we've  never  been  able  to  change  the  policy  and  I  don't  think 
it's  changed  to  this  date. 

There  are  thoroughly  embedded  interests  against  it.   The  insur 
ance  companies  and  automobile  associations  would  probably  scream  to 
high  heaven  if  we  changed  that  policy.   They  like  to  be  able  to  do 
business  with  as  few  agencies  as  possible  when  it  comes  to  getting 
cars  back  and  that  kind  of  thing.   And  then  there  are  many  local 
courts  which  don't  want  to  have  the  expense  of  processing  these 


386 


Olney:    cases  and  of  supervising  juveniles  any  more  than  they  have  to. 

They  are  glad  to  shift  the  burden  over  to  the  federal  government. 
But  it's  a  bad  administrative  practice,  in  my  judgment,  and  we 
never  were  able  to  correct  it. 


Now  what  do  you  want  to  go  to? 


The  Nomination  of  Earl  Warren  to  the  Supreme  Court 

Stein:   The  next  topic  that  you  suggested  was  Earl  Warren's  nomination  to 
the  Supreme  Court  and  the  hearings  on  the  nomination. 

Olney:   Well,  Chief  Justice  Vinson  died  very  suddenly  and  unexpectedly.   At 
once  there  was  speculation  as  to  who  was  going  to  be  appointed  to 
fill  the  vacancy.   I  did  become  aware  that  Earl  Warren  was  being 
considered,  because  Mr.  Brownell  and  Mr.  Rogers  both  asked  me  and 
Stanley  Barnes,  who  had  known  him  very  well  too,  a  great  many  ques 
tions  about  him.   The  particular  question  that  they  were  asking  was 
whether  he  had  really  had  any  amount  of  trial  work.   He  had  been 
governor  of  the  state  for  three  terms,  he'd  been  attorney  general, 
and  he'd  been  district  attorney  for  a  long  period,  but  they  didn't 
know  whether  this  meant  that  he  had  ever  had  any  real  experience 
himself  in  going  into  court,  presenting  cases  before  juries,  arguing 
matters  on  appeal,  preparing  briefs,  and  the  general  work  that  goes 
along  with  the  courtroom. 

I  did  know  about  that.   I  knew  about  it  in  detail,  many,  many 
cases  in  which  he  had  participated  personally  and  some  of  his 
accomplishments  there.   Of  course,  I  was  glad  to  give  them  what 
information  I  had.   They  never  asked  me  whether  I  thought  he  would 
be  a  good  chief  justice,  and  I  never  expressed  any  view  as  to  it. 
Of  course,  I  hoped  they  would  name  him.   I  think  they  knew  I  hoped 
they  would  name  him  without  their  asking  me.   But  I  never  did  any 
thing  more  than  answer  their  questions. 

I  don't  know  exactly  what  did  happen  when  Mr.  Brownell  came  out 
here  to  California  to  see  the  governor.   He  talked  to  the  governor 
for  quite  a  while.  While  he  was  here  there  was  a  newspaper  leak, 
which,  when  Mr.  Brownell  came  back,  I  realized  was  deliberate.   I 
think  what  it  was  was  a  trial  balloon  to  see  what  public  reaction 
there  would  be  to  it.   But,  at  any  rate,  he  was  nominated — well, 
his  name  was  sent  to  the  president  and  the  president  sent  it  in. 
But  Congress  was  not  in  session  and  they  had  to  wait  until  Congress 
came  into  session  before  he  could  be  confirmed. 


387 


Stein:   Well,  now,  to  back  up  just  a  minute,  did  you  know  anything  of  what 
went  into  the  decision  to  even  put  his  name  in  the  hopper  as  a 
candidate? 

Olney:   No,  no,  I  don't.   I  only  know  this,  that  Mr.  Brownell  was  very 

conscientious  about  his  judicial  appointments.   He  used  to  say  very 
frequently  that  it's  the  judges  that  were  going  to  give  this  admin 
istration  its  reputation,  that  they'll  be  here  long  after  this 
administration  goes.   He  did  his  utmost  to  fill  those  positions 
with  men  who  he  thought  were  qualified.   He  strove  very,  very  hard 
to  get  the  best  men  he  could. 

Now,  they  were  aware,  when  they  went  in,  that  there  was  a  very 
great  imbalance  among  the  judiciary  as  a  whole  between  Republicans 
and  Democrats.  Well,  I  say  between  Republicans  and  Democrats,  but 
nobody  knows  what  a  judge  is  after  he's  been  on  the  bench.   The  only 
way  you  have  of  judging  him  is  what  he  was  at  the  time  he  took 
office  and  then  it's  clear  enough.   But  there  were  about  ninety 
percent  Democrats  and  they  thought  that  was  out  of  balance.   They 
thought  it  ought  to  be  about  half  and  half,  something  like  that. 
And  so  the  first  few  nominees  were  largely  Republicans.   But  they 
were  very  carefully  selected,  and  I  think  you'll  find  that  they  are 
recognized  on  the  whole  as  very  good  appointments,  indeed. 

Now,  when  it  came  to  the  chief  justice,  they  were  trying  to  get 
the  best  one  they  could  find.  They  were  not  playing  politics  with 
it;  there  wasn't  any  politics  to  play.  The  qualifications  for  a 
justice  on  the  Supreme  Court  in  their  view  and  in  mine — I  speak  of 
their  view  because  I  heard  them  talk  about  it — are  quite  different 
from  what  you  want  as  a  trial  judge  or  even  a  court  of  appeals  judge. 

The  Supreme  Court  doesn't  get  any  easy  cases.   It  gets  the  tough 
ones.   It  gets  the  cases  where  there  is  no  precedent.   They  have  to 
decide  things  for  the  first  time.   And  in  deciding  them  for  the 
first  time,  they  have  to  be  men  of  vision,  because  they  have  to  be 
able  to  see  what  the  effect  of  that  decision  is  going  to  be,  not  just 
on  the  parties  before  them,  but  the  precedent  it  will  establish  for 
future  cases.  Well,  that  is  totally  different  from  being  a  trial 
judge  whose  duty  it  is  to  take  the  facts  before  him  and  apply  the 
law  as  it  exists  as  best  he  knows  it.   Occasionally  he  may  get  some 
thing  that's  new,  and  he  does  the  best  he  can,  knowing  full  well 
that  whatever  he  decides  will  probably  be  reviewed  on  appeal.   If 
he  makes  a  poor  decision,  it  can  be  righted  on  appeal. 

Well,  the  qualities  that  are  needed  on  the  Supreme  Court  are 
quite  different:  broad  experience  with  government  and  with  life,  an 
open  mind,  an  understanding  of  people,  a  high  degree  of  imagination 
of  the  type  that  makes  it  possible  to  project  the  future  with  some 
reasonable  accuracy.   Qualities  like  that  are  far  more  important 


388 


Olney:    than  the  case-by-case  training  of  a  trial  judge.   But  a  man  on  the 
Court  should  have  some  background  of  trial  work;  at  least  it's  a 
great  help  to  him.   But  there  have  been  many  good  ones  who  didn't. 
Black  had  very,  very  little  experience  in  the  trial  courts,  and 
yet  he  made  a  very  fine  justice,  and  there  have  been  others. 

Well,  I  should  also  say  this.  With  a  position  of  that  kind, 
they  have  to  get  somebody  who  is  going  to  be  accepted  by  the  Senate 
and  by  the  president  too.   So  the  choice  isn't  so  overly  broad.   It 
has  to  be  someone  who's  pretty  well  known.   That's  all  I  can  tell 
you  about  why  they  did  select  him. 

Stein:   And  then  you  were  saying  that  Congress  was  not  in  session. 

Olney:   Yes,  so  Earl  Warren  had  to  serve  without  confirmation  when  the  Court 
took  up  its  business,  which  is  always  when  the  term  begins  on  the 
first  Monday  in  October.   He  had  a  few  weeks  to  try  to  get  familiar 
with  judicial  business.   It  must  have  been  an  awfully  tough  time  for 
him.   But  then  the  Court  opened. 

An  interesting  thing  happened  in  that  first  day.   Although  Stan 
Barnes  and  I  had  both  been  in  the  department  for  some  months,  neither 
of  us  had  gotten  around  to  being  admitted  to  the  Bar  of  the  Supreme 
Court.  We  hadn't  had  any  occasion  to  appear  there  personally  to 
handle  cases  or  anything,  so  we  just  hadn't  done  it.   Shortly  before 
the  Court  was  to  begin  and  we  realized  that  our  friend  was  going  to 
be  the  chief  justice  presiding,  it  occurred  to  us  that  this  was  a 
good  time  to  get  admitted. 

Time  was  so  short,  so  we  had  to  telephone  out  here  to  California 
to  get  our  papers  sent  from  the  clerk's  office  in  proper  time. 
Then  we  had  to  find  somebody  who  would  move  our  admission.  At  that 
time — I  don't  know  whether  they  have  the  same  requirements  now  or 
not — your  admission  had  to  be  moved  by  someone  who  was  himself 
admitted  to  the  Supreme  Court,  but  who  was  also  from  your  own  home 
state  and  admitted  to  the  court  there.   He  would  appear  before  the 
Supreme  Court  on  the  proper  day  and  he  would  say,  "Mr.  Chief  Justice, 
I  move  the  admission  of  Mr.  So-and-so,  who  is  a  member  of  the  Bar 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State  of  California  and  has  been  for  so 
many  years.   I  know  that  he  possesses  all  the  necessary  qualifica 
tions."  The  chief  justice  would  respond  by  saying,  "I  welcome  you 
to  the  Bar  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  Mr.  So-and-so. 
If  you'll  just  stand  over  there  by  the  clerk's  desk,  he  will  admin 
ister  the  oath  of  office." 


But  you  have  to  have  somebody  from  your  state.  Well,  Stan  and  I 
couldn't  find  anybody  from  our  state.   Bill  Knowland  wasn't  a  lawyer, 
and  the  rest  of  the  congressional  delegation  was  not  around  for  some 
reason. 


389 


Stein:    If  they  were  in  recess,  they  had  probably  all  gone  home. 

Olney:   Well,  I  don't  know,  but  we  couldn't  find  them.  We  were  muttering 
to  each  other  about  this  one  evening  when  we  were  at  some  kind  of 
reception.   Dick  Nixon  was  there  and  heard  us  going  through  this 
and  he  said,  "I'm  a  member  of  both  bars.   I'll  move  your  admission." 
Well,  this  was  fine,  and  he  did. 

Another  bit  of  protocol  in  the  Supreme  Court  is  the  order  in 
which  things  are  done.  When  the  Court  opens,  the  first  order  of 
business  is  the  admission  of  new  members  to  the  bar.   Those  admis 
sions  are  taken  up  not  in  alphabetical  order,  but  according  to  who 
the  sponsor  is,  according  to  rank.   If  you're  a  Senator,  why,  your 
man  is  called  first  so  that  you  can  go  about  your  business.   If 
you're  a  congressman,  why,  then  you're  next  on  the  list.   Then,  if 
you're  a  cabinet  member,  and  so  forth.   And  if  you're  an  assistant 
attorney  general,  you  have  your  proper  place  on  the  list  before  you 
get  down  to  ordinary  lawyers  who  are  moving  admissions.   But  we  had 
the  Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  so  we  were  first. 

The  result  was  that  Earl  Warren's  first  official  act  on  taking 
office  was  to  hear  the  motion  from  Dick  Nixon  for  the  admission  of 
Stan  Barnes  and  me  to  the  Court.   And  his  first  order  as  chief 
justice  was  to  direct  our  admission.   Our  certificate  shows  this. 
It's  got  this  strange  couple  of  names  on  it,  but  from  the  dates  and 
the  rest  of  it,  one  can  see  it's  exactly  what  happened. 

Well,  when  Earl  finally  left  the  bench,  there  was  something  of  a 
follow-up  on  this.   You'll  recall  that  he  had  told  Lyndon  Johnson 
that  he  wanted  to  step  down  as  chief  justice  at  the  end  of  the  term 
in  June.   Then  Johnson  had  nominated  Abe  Fortas  and  they  got  into 
all  that  racket.   Fortas  wasn't  confirmed,  so  there  was  no  confirma 
tion  or  nomination  of  a  successor  until  after  Nixon's  election. 
Nixon  called  the  chief  justice  and  asked  him  if  he  wouldn't  serve 
until  the  end  of  the  current  term,  which  would  be  the  following 
June,  (so  Warren  was  there  a  year  longer  than  he  had  intended  to 
stay)  so  that  he,  Nixon,  wouldn't  be  confronted  with  having  to  fill 
that  position  as  well  as  all  the  cabinet  posts  and  other  responsi 
bilities  that  he  had.  Warren  agreed  to  do  that,  but  he  made  it 
very  clear  that  that  was  the  end,  that  he  wanted  out.   He  would 
have  his  resignation  effective  at  the  end  of  the  term. 

Well,  I  was  in  the  East  and  had  lunch  with  Earl  Warren  two  days 
before  the  terra  was  to  end.   His  successor  hadn't  been  announced. 
I  had  lunch  with  him  and  I  said,  "Well,  time's  getting  pretty  short. 
Do  you  know  who  your  successor  is  going  to  be?"  He  said,  "No,  I 
don't.   They  haven't  given  me  any  indication."  Well,  while  we  were 


390 


Olney:   having  lunch,  his  secretary,  Mrs.  McHugh,  came  in  and  said  that  it 
had  just  been  announced  by  the  White  House  that  the  president  was 
going  to  announce  his  appointee  that  night  on  TV.   So  we  said,  "Well, 
we'll  both  learn."  We  took  a  couple  of  bets  as  to  who  it  might  be. 
[laughter] 

Stein:   Who  were  you  betting  on? 

Olney:   Well,  I  won't  say.   I  really  didn't  know.   I  wondered  who  it  was 
going  to  be.   There  were  many  names  that  were  being  mentioned  at 
that  time,  but  I  did  not  think  that  it  was  going  to  be  Warren  Burger. 
I'd  known  Warren,  of  course,  in  the  department  very  well.  We  were 
very  close  friends  and  our  wives  are  very  good  friends.   As  a  matter 
of  fact,  while  I  was  having  lunch  with  Earl  Warren,  Mrs.  Olney  was 
out  shopping  with  Vera  Burger,  because  the  Burgers  were  planning  to 
come  West  and  Vera  had  never  been  out  here  before.   She  wanted 
Elizabeth's  help  in  getting  some  clothes  that  were  suitable  for  the 
climate.   She  went  home  early. 

We  went  to  dinner  at  the  home  of  some  old  friends,  all  of  whom 
were  in  the  legal  profession  and  were  interested  in  who  the  next 
chief  justice  was  going  to  be,  so  we  were  sitting  around  having  a 
cocktail  when  they  staged  this  thing;  it  was  like  an  Ed  Sullivan 
production.   Out  from  behind  the  curtains  comes  the  president,  who 
makes  his  announcement,  and  then  who  comes  out  but  none  other  than 
Warren  Burger  and  Vera,  to  our  immense  astonishment.   Poor  Vera 
looked  like  she'd  been  run  over  by  a  truck.   She  had  no  idea  at  all, 
until  she  got  home  for  dinner  that  night,  as  to  what  was  going  to 
happen. 

Stein:   Here  she'd  been  buying  a  wardrobe  for  the  west  coast. 

Olney:  Yes.  She  had  to  get  her  two  children  together  and  get  down  to  the 
White  House.  Warren  Burger  himself  hadn't  known  until  that  after 
noon. 

[Attorney  General  John]  Mitchell  had  called  him  up  and  said  he 
wanted  to  see  him.   So  he  went  down  to  the  department,  and  Mitchell 
said  he  wanted  to  send  his  name  in  to  the  president  as  the  next 
chief  justice  and  thought  he  better  let  him  know  ahead  of  time. 
"What  about  it?"  Warren  told  him  that  he  wanted  a  little  time  to 
think  about  it.   He  said,  "I  had  hoped  the  president  would  name 
Herbert  Brownell."  Mitchell  said,  "I  can't  give  you  much  time  to 
think  about  it  because  we're  going  to  name  you  tonight."   [laughter] 
Warren  said,  "Well,  go  ahead,  then."   So  he  became  the  chief  justice. 

Well,  then  later  on  they  had  a  swearing-in  ceremony.   The  out 
going  chief  justice  concluded  the  business  for  the  term  and  that 
was  the  occasion  for  the  introduction  of  the  new  chief  justice,  who 


391 


Olney:    had  taken  one  oath  of  office  at  the  White  House,  and  then  he  was 

brought  to  the  Supreme  Court  by  the  president  himself  and  introduced 
to  the  Court.   The  president  said  that  his  first  appearance  before 
the  Supreme  Court  had  been  when  Earl  Warren,  who  was  now  retiring, 
was  entering  in  on  his  duties,  and  at  that  time  he  had  moved  for 
the  admission  of  Warren  Olney  and  Stanley  Barnes  to  the  bar.   He 
said  that  this  was  one  case  in  the  Supreme  Court  that  he  had  suc 
ceeded  in  winning.   [laughter]   He  now  hoped  that  he  would  win  his 
second  one  when  he  presented  the  new  chief  justice.   So,  we  had 
quite  a  time  with  that!* 

Now,  the  other  thing  about  Earl  Warren's  nomination  had  to  do 
with  the  hearings  on  him  before  the  Senate  Judiciary  Committee. 
The  chairman  of  the  committee  was  Senator  [William]  Langer,  because 
we  had  a  Republican  Congress  at  that  time.   The  senior  Democratic 
member  was  Senator  James  Eastland  of  Mississippi. 

Senator  Eastland  didn't  want  to  hold  any  hearings.   He  said, 
"There's  no  need  for  that;  we'll  just  go  ahead  and  approve  it." 
But  Senator  Langer  said,  "No,"  that  he'd  received  a  letter  objecting 
to  the  appointment  and  he  was  going  to  have  a  hearing.   He  wanted  it 
to  be  a  public  hearing  and  he  was  going  to  hear  anybody  who  had  any 
thing  he  wanted  to  say.  Well,  Senator  Eastland  said,  "I'm  not  going 
to  be  a  party  to  this  at  all.   We'll  have  every  damn  dog  in  the 
country  coming  around  lifting  his  leg  and  I'm  not  going  to  have  that 
happen.   If  we're  going  to  have  to  have  hearings,  they  are  going  to 
be  private  hearings."  So  they  compromised  and  they  had  private 
hearings.   And  they  did  have  a  lot  of  dogs,  a  lot  of  dogs. 

These  characters  would  show  up.   One  of  the  first  ones  said  that 
Earl  Warren  when  he  had  been  district  attorney  had  squelched  the 
investigation  of  a  murder  committed  by  Sheriff  Barnet  of  Alameda 
County,  the  so-called  Bessie  Ferguson  case,  and  that  this  had  been 
a  rank  miscarriage  of  justice  which  he  had  perpetrated  simply  for 
political  reasons.  Well,  Bill  Rogers,  as  deputy  attorney  general, 
was  in  the  hearing — that  was  usual — but  no  one  else.   When  he  came 
out  for  lunch  he  spoke  about  this.   He  didn't  know  anything  about 
the  Bessie  Ferguson  case.  Well,  I  told  him  about  the  case.   So  he 
went  back  and  explained  it  to  the  Senators. 


*See  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.   Retirement  of  Mr.  Chief 
Justice  Warren,  administration  of  oath  to  Mr.  Chief  Justice  Burger, 
6/23/69.   On  deposit  in  The  Bancroft  Library. 


392 


Olney:   Then  they  had  someone  else  testify,  and  he  [Rogers]  would  tell  me 
what  it  was  about,  and  it  was  always  something  that  I  knew  about. 
Well,  it  ended  up  by  their  inviting  me  to  come  to  the  hearing.   I 
think  the  hearings  lasted  two  or  three  days.   Poor  Earl  was  very 
irked  by  this.   You  can  imagine  what  it's  like  to  have  a  closed 
meeting  of  this  kind  with  so  many  people  who,  he  knew,  weren't 
friendly  to  him,  all  the  accumulation  of  twenty  years  of  public 
life  with  all  the  enemies  there  saying  things  about  him;  he  didn't 
know  what. 

But  I  did  sit  there  and  answer  these  things  as  they  came  out.   I 
did  not  realize  that  I  knew  as  much  about  Earl  Warren's  professional 
activities  as  I  did.   They  did  not  have  anything  in  there  that  I  did 
not  know  about,  and  nearly  all  of  them  from  my  own  personal  knowledge. 

The  people  who  came  were  obviously  subsidized.   I  thought  it  was 
probably  some  of  these  oil  people  out  here,  such  as  Keck  of  the 
Superior  Oil  Company,  that  hated  Earl  Warren  like  poison  who  had 
put  up  the  money  to  send  them  back  to  Washington. 

Stein:   What  were  some  of  the  other  issues?  Do  you  remember  any  besides 
Bessie  Ferguson? 

Olney:   Oh,  yes.   One  was  that  he  allowed  the  Chinese  gamblers  to  operate  in 

Emeryville  when  he  was  DA.   Totally  false.   It  was  just  the  other  way. 

Stein:    I  was  just  going  to  say  that  of  all  the  things  that  they  picked,  they 
couldn't  have  picked  more  clear-cut  cases  where  Warren  had  moved  in 
with  alacrity. 

Olney:    I  can't  remember.   I'm  sure  if  I  sat  down  and  figured  it  out,  the 

list  would  be  lengthy.   There  were  a  lot  of  things  that  they  brought 
up.   But  they  didn't  bring  up  anything  that  had  any  merit  in  it  or 
any  difficulty  about  it.   So  he  was  confirmed. 

But  it's  another  instance  of  what  a  very  strange  man  this  Senator 
Langer  was.   Very  peculiar  fellow.   I  told  you  what  he  did  with  me, 
telling  me  he  was  an  expert  in  the  criminal  law  because  he  was  the 
only  Senator  who  had  ever  been  tried  and  convicted  of  conspiracy. 

Now,  during  the  time  Earl  Warren  was  chief  justice  and  I  was 
assistant  attorney  general,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  I  knew  him 
so  well,  I  tried  to  make  sure  that  I  didn't  do  anything  that  would 
embarrass  him  in  any  way,  because  of  our  former  close  relationship. 
So  I  never  appeared  in  the  Supreme  Court  while  he  was  chief  justice 
to  argue  any  cases.   He  sometimes  wondered  why  I  didn't.   But  I 
never  explained  to  him  why  I  didn't.   I  just  didn't  think  that  it 
was  a  good  idea  at  all.   Everybody  knew  that  I  had  worked  with  him 
for  a  long,  long  time,  and  I  wouldn't  want  to  have  that  fact  involved 
in  any  of  our  cases. 


Swearing-in  Ceremony,  February  2,  1953.   From  left: 
Attorney  General  Herbert  Brownell,  Chief  Justice  Fred 
M.  Vinson,  Assistant  Attorney  General  H.  Bryan  Holland 
(Tax  Division),  and  Assistant  Attorney  General  Warren 
Olney  III  (Criminal  Division) . 


Wedding  reception  for  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Brownell 's  daughter 
Joan,  Anderson  House,  about  1955.   From  left:   Charles 
Rice  (Tax  Division),  Warren  Olney  III  (Asst.  Attorney 
General-Criminal  Division),  S.  A.  Andretta  (Admin.  Asst. 
to  the  Attorney  General),  Mrs.  Olney,  Mrs.  Stanley  Barnes, 
Charles  Metzner  (Asst.  to  the  Attorney  General). 


393 


Olney:   But  on  top  of  that,  I  was  concerned  about  the  effect  it  might  have 
in  my  division.   If  I  appeared  and  argued  a  case  in  the  Supreme 
Court  and  won  it,  it  might  be  regarded  as  a  hand-picked  case  and  an 
easy  one.   If  I  appeared  in  the  Supreme  Court  and  lost  it,  it  would 
show  what  a  complete  dope  I  was,  that  I  couldn't  even  win  a  case 
when  the  Court  was  stacked  with  my  friends.   So  I  didn't  take  part 
in  the  Court. 

I  did  see  him  from  time  to  time  on  the  outside.   It  took  Mrs. 
Warren  quite  a  while  to  get  moved,  and  so  when  he  was  there  alone 
we  used  to  go  walking  together  on  the  weekends,  things  like  that, 
and  he  often  came  to  our  home  for  dinner. 


Cleaning  Up  the  Mess  in  Washington 
[Interview  11:  April  17,  1974] 


Olney:   Now,  I  wonder  if  we  should  go  on  to  something  else,  and  if  so,  what? 
Stein:   Well,  we  could  move  on  to  cleaning  up  the  mess  in  Washington. 

Olney:   Well,  when  I  entered  the  attorney  general's  office,  it  was  against 
a  background  of  publicity  that  the  Truman  administration  had 
received  about  scandals  in  the  Justice  Department.   There  had  been 
congressional  investigations  about  the  mishandling  of  cases,  even 
the  fixing  of  cases  in  the  Justice  Department.   As  a  result  of  all 
that,  I  was,  of  course,  very  suspicious  of  the  staff  that  I  took 
over.  We  didn't  know  exactly  where  to  go.   Well,  there  had  been  a 
series  of  changes  in  the  Justice  Department  just  before  we  came  in. 

Most  of  these  scandals  that  had  gotten  into  the  press  were 
during  the  tenure  of  Attorney  General  Howard  McGrath.   Truman  had 
fired  him  out  of  hand  way  back  in  July  or  August  of  1952.   Then  he 
had  appointed  in  his  place  Judge  McGranery.   I  don't  recall  his 
first  name.   He'd  been  a  United  States  district  judge  and  prior  to 
that  had  been  around  Washington  as  a  prosecutor  of  one  kind  or 
another.  Well,  McGranery  was  a  totally  different  type  from  McGrath. 
He  set  about  on  a  housecleaning  in  an  extraordinarily  vigorous  way, 
to  say  the  least,  and  many  changes  were  made. 

He  brought  in  as  assistant  attorney  general  in  charge  of  the 
criminal  division  Mr.  Charles  Murray,  who  had  been  U.S.  Attorney 
for  the  District  of  Columbia.   Murray  was  my  immediate  predecessor. 
Well,  I  found  that  Murray  had  taken  a  real  hold  and  had  straightened 
out  most  of  the  things  that  needed  straightening  out,  and  such 
criminal  prosecutions  as  had  been  needed  to  be  brought  had  already 
been  started.   Many  of  them  had  been  completed. 


394 


Olney:   In  the  few  weeks  when  Murray  and  I  were  both  there,  when  he  was 

still  in  office  and  before  I  had  been  sworn  in,  we  got  to  know  each 
other  reasonably  well,  well  enough  that  when  he  left,  Murray  gave 
me  a  list  of  about  a  dozen  lawyers  in  my  division  that  he  thought 
were  deadbeats  and  told  me  that  if  he'd  stayed,  he  would  have  gotten 
rid  of  them.   Naturally  I  was  a  little  skeptical  of  the  list,  just 
considering  its  source,  but  as  time  went  on  I  discovered  that  that 
was  an  absolutely  bona  fide  list.   There  wasn't  a  lawyer  on  there 
that  was  worth  anything,  and  we  did  indeed  get  rid  of  them.   But 
aside  from  the  incident  that  I  mentioned  in  the  Bramblett  case, 
where  I  felt  I  was  the  victim  of  an  attempt  to  get  rid  of  me,  I  had 
no  problems  to  speak  of  with  personnel  inside  the  division,  except 
ing  with  people  such  as  were  on  Charlie  Murray's  list. 

The  previous  administration,  for  some  reason  or  other,  had  used 
the  criminal  division  as  a  sort  of  a  dumping  ground  for  political 
hacks  that  they  didn't  know  where  else  to  place.   They'd  be  given 
a  job  there  where  they  could  draw  a  salary,  even  though  they  weren't 
doing  any  work  that  anybody  could  notice.  We  got  rid  of  those. 

Now,  the  main  place  that  we  discovered  corruption  in  the  govern 
ment  was  in  the  Treasury,  and  it  was  on  the  fixing  of  income  tax 
cases.   There  we  found  real  corruption.   Dan  Bolich  was  the  com 
missioner  of  Internal  Revenue,  and  we  had  a  grand  jury  investigation 
and  indicted  and  tried  and  convicted  him  for  just  out-and-out 
bribery.   Quite  a  few  cases.   I  believe  there  must  have  been  a  half 
a  dozen  top  Treasury  or  Internal  Revenue  people  who  were  convicted 
of  graft. 

Now,  I  had  a  peculiar  experience  there,  with  the  Internal  Revenue 
Service.   The  new  commissioner,  I  think  they  called  him — it  was  the 
Internal  Revenue  Bureau  then,  headed  by  a  commissioner.   Later  it 
was  the  Internal  Revenue  Service,  headed  by  a  director,  but  the 
position  was  the  same  in  either  case. 

Well,  the  first  Eisenhower  commissioner  was  a  man  named  T.  Coleman 
Andrews.   I  was  delighted  to  learn  of  his  nomination,  because  I  had 
served  with  him  in  the  marine  corps,  both  in  Samoa  and  on  Kwajalein 
Island,  and  so  I  contemplated  a  good  friendly  working  relation  with 
him  while  we  tried  to  clean  up  the  Treasury.   I  made  it  a  point  of 
going  to  his  swearing-in  ceremonies  and  of  calling  on  him  and  renew 
ing  our  relationship. 

The  first  place  that  we  tackled  was  the  Bureau  office  in  Pitts 
burgh,  and  this  was  because  the  U.S.  Attorney  and  his  assistant — 
why  do  I  pull  blanks  on  all  these  names  that  I  know  so  well? — well, 
his  assistant  was  Malcolm  Anderson,  who  eventually  was  my  successor 
in  the  criminal  division.   But  John  Macllvain  was  the  U.S.  Attorney, 
who  was  later  United  States  District  judge.   Macllvain  came  to  see 
me  about  the  corruption  in  the  Internal  Revenue  Service,  and  because 


395 


Olney:   I  knew  Andrews  well,  we  went  over  and  had  a  discussion  of  this  with 

him.   Measures  were  taken  so  that  there  was  an  adequate  investigation 
and  arrests  were  made,  convictions  were  had,  but  it  was  a  long,  con 
tinued  affair.   There  were  others  besides  those  who  were  first 
indicted  and  convicted,  and  it  kept  going. 

But  there  came  a  point  where  suddenly  I  got  major  resistance  from 
the  Bureau  of  Internal  Revenue.   The  coldness  and  resistance  from 
Mr.  Andrews  became  apparent  somewhere  along  in  the  fall  of  1954. 
Finally  I  got  wind  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  Andrews  was  resentful  of 
all  the  corruption  we  were  bringing  to  light  in  the  Internal  Revenue 
Service,  and  that  he  was  of  the  view  that  a  lot  of  this  was  aimed  at 
him.  He  had  stated  that  he  had  had  trouble  with  me  in  former  years 
when  we  were  in  the  marine  corps.   I  don't  remember  where  I  got  this 
report.   It  was  an  oral  report,  but  it  satisfied  me  that  he  had 
expressed  himself  that  way. 

So  I  wrote  him  a  letter  in  November  of  1954  and  said  that  I'd 
heard  this  statement  attributed  to  him  that  we  had  had  some  diffi 
culty  in  the  marine  corps  and  asked  him  in  what  respect  I  had 
offended  him,  but  I  never  got  any  answer,  not  even  an  acknowledge 
ment  from  him.   I  did  not  have  any  trouble,  if  one  would  call  it 
trouble,  in  the  marine  corps.  We  did  have  what  I  thought  was  a 
very  amusing  incident. 

We  were  both  captains,  and  we  were  both  attached,  as  intelligence 
officers,  to  the  staff  of  the  Fourth  Marine  Airwing.   This  made  us 
junior  officers,  and  the  so-called  field  officers — that  is,  the 
generals  and  the  colonels  and  whatnot — had  their  own  separate  mess, 
and  we  had  our  own  junior  officers'  mess.  Well,  the  generals'  mess 
had  to  have  somebody  to  run  it,  and  so,  of  course,  they  picked  a 
captain  for  that  purpose.   The  captain  was  Jerry  Green,  who  was  a 
little  senior  to  both  Andrews  and  me,  and  who'd  been  a  reporter  on 
one  of  the  New  York  papers  and  then  later  was  a  reporter,  after  the 
war,  for  one  of  the  Washington  papers.   He  had  to  run  the  generals' 
mess  for  them.  Well,  the  time  came  when  Jerry  had  served  his 
allotted  time  out  there  and  went  home,  and  then  they  had  to  get 
somebody  else. 

Well,  the  next  two  seniors  were  T.  Coleman  Andrews  and  me.   I 
didn't  want  to  have  any  part  of  it.   I  didn't  want  to  be  in  the 
generals'  mess  at  all.   Furthermore,  I  wasn't  very  far  from  finish 
ing  my  tour  of  duty,  too.   So  when  this  came  up  it  turned  out  that 
we  were  commissioned  on  the  very  same  date,  so  that  it  was  most 
difficult  to  figure  out  who  was  senior.   I  went  to  the  colonel  who 
had  charge  of  thie  perplexing  problem  and  told  him  I  would  be  happy 
to  waive  all  my  rights,  and  to  please  recognize  T.  Coleman  Andrews 
as  the  senior  because  he  wanted  it  very  much  and  I  didn't. 


396 


Olney:   Well,  the  colonel  told  me  that  was  absolutely  unthinkable,  that  this 
thing  would  be  decided  strictly  according  to  a  matter  of  rank.   The 
lengths  to  which  they  went  were  just  preposterous.   They  even  figured 
the  times  of  day.   Andrews  had  been  sworn  into  the  marine  corps  in 
Africa;  he  had  been  in  Africa  in  some  civilian  capacity  when  he 
joined  the  marine  corps.   They  figured  that  was  a  little  earlier  in 
the  day  than  it  was  in  California  when  I  was  sworn  in.   So,  to  my 
great  delight  and  satisfaction,  he  became  the  mess  officer  for  the 
generals'  mess.   Now,  that  was  the  only  difference  that  he  and  I 
ever  had.  We  really  were  both  seeking  the  same  end,  which  was  to 
make  him  mess  officer. 

But  in  years  later  I  have  come  to  wonder  about  something  else. 
And  that  is  whether  or  not  this  is  related  to  civil  rights. 

T.  Coleman  Andrews,  in  later  years,  was  one  of  the  founding 
members  of  the  John  Birch  Society,  and  a  rank  segregationist  from 
way  back. 

Stein:   Well,  the  connection  does  look  clearer. 

Olney:   Yes,  what  with  the  Brown  decision  and  the  position  that  my  division 
was  taking  on  civil  rights,  I've  come  to  the  conclusion  that  those 
two  things  were  related. 

Stein:   He  probably  thought  he  was  being  persecuted  on  all  fronts  by  the 
criminal  division. 

Olney:   He  was  even  the  John  Birch  Society  candidate  for  the  presidency. 
He  ran  on  some  kind  of  a  ticket  at  one  time,  as  extreme  as  you 
could  possibly  make  it. 

Stein:   What  was  the  eventual  outcome? 

Olney:   Well,  we  succeeded  in  getting  the  information  and  then  we  had  a 
lot  of  difficulty  in  working  out  between  the  Treasury  Department 
and  the  FBI  who  was  going  to  have  the  responsibility  for  investigat 
ing  bribery  and  misconduct  on  the  part  of  Treasury  agents.   Up  until 
that  time,  Treasury  agents  had  been  investigating  their  own  people, 
and  it  hadn't  worked  very  well.   The  question  was,  shouldn't  the 
FBI  investigate  corruption  in  the  Treasury? 

And,  my  goodness,  to  work  that  out  is  as  difficult  as  what  Henry 
Kissinger  is  having  to  do  with  the  Israelis  and  the  Arabs.   Those 
two  agencies  were  just  about  as  far  apart  and  as  difficult  to  bring 
to  agreement  as  any  I've  ever  worked  with.  We  did,  finally,  pound 
out  a  written  agreement.   It  looks  like  a  treaty  of  peace,  on  who 
was  supposed  to  investigate  whom  under  what  circumstances. 


397 


Stein:    Can  you  remember  what  the  gist  of  it  was? 

Olney:   No,  I  can't.   But  it  was  not  a  very  satisfactory  thing.   The 

negotiations  and  the  drafting  were  carried  out  by  Lee  Rankin  and 
the  office  of  legal  counsel. 

Now,  one  of  the  things  that  Mr.  Brownell  had  been  much  concerned 
with  when  I  first  talked  with  him  about  going  into  the  department 
was  the  low  repute  of  the  department,  and  his  belief  that  public 
respect  and  confidence  in  the  department  must  be  built  up  by  doing 
its  job  in  a  fair  and  impartial  way.  Well,  we  recognized  when  we 
came  in  that  the  only  effective  way  of  doing  that  was  to  make  it 
clear  that  we  were  being  just  as  tough  on  Republicans  as  we  were 
on  Democrats,  and  that  they  were  all  being  treated  alike.   To  carry 
that  out  it  doesn't  mean  you  have  to  treat  Republicans  any  worse. 
It  means  that  you  have  to  be  prompt  and  act  at  once,  because  if  you 
don't,  then  the  complaint  will  be  made  that  you're  dragging  your 
feet  just  because  they're  Republicans,  and  then,  when  you  do  act, 
you  don't  get  any  credit  for  it.   They  say,  "Well,  you  got  pushed 
into  it  by  the  publicity,"  and  this  sort  of  thing. 

So  we  tried  to  follow  a  policy  of  acting  as  promptly  as  we  could 
on  our  own  people.   I  notice  in  the  attorney  general's  report  for 
the  fiscal  year  1953,  in  which  as  assistant  in  charge  of  the  criminal 
division  I  made  my  contribution  on  violations  of  the  election  laws, 
we  report  here  that  "three  former  officials  of  the  state  Republican 
committees  were  indicted  for  unlawful  political  activity.   In  the 
northern  district  of  Georgia,  the  chairman  of  the  Republican  com 
mittee  for  the  Eighth  Congressional  District  of  Georgia  and  the 
Republican  chairman  for  Pierce  County,  Georgia,  were  indicted  for 
soliciting  $1,000,  $500,  and  $200  for  use  of  their  political 
influence  in  filling  post  office  positions."   Then  we  also  indicted 
Henry  Grady  Smith  and  Chestnut  A.  Thompson,  who  offered  $1,000  for 
appointment  as  postmasters  in  Georgia. 

As  my  report  states,  "the  information  leading  to  this  investiga 
tion  was  brought  to  the  department's  attention  by  leaders  of  the 
Republican  party  in  Georgia."  They  were  indicted  and  sent  to  jail. 
There  were  other  similar  cases  against  Republicans  which  are  men 
tioned  here.   Now,  it's  worth  noting  that  these  were  reported  by 
leaders  of  the  Republican  party  in  Georgia. 

This  was  the  work  of  one  man,  a  very  unusual  man.   His  name 
was  Elbert  Tuttle.   Mr.  Tuttle  was  born  and  brought  up  in  Atlanta. 
He  had  been  a  Calif ornian  for  a  long  period,  and  he  was  the  general 
counsel  for  the  U.S.  Treasury  under  President  Eisenhower,  which  is 


398 


Olney:    really  next  to  the  secretary  of  treasury.   He  had  the  identical 
ideas  that  we  had  about  the  need  for  trying  to  get  a  good  name 
for  Republicans.   He  and  I  discussed  it  at  some  length. 

He  said,  "You  know,  down  in  the  South  and  particularly  down  in 
Georgia,  it's  been  so  many  years  since  the  Republicans  had  any 
office  at  all,  that  when  they  take  office,  most  people  think  that 
what  they  should  do  is  do  just  what  the  Democrats  did.   They  think 
that  they  can  go  around  and  buy  and  sell  offices  and  things  of  this 
kind,  and  we've  got  to  hit  them  over  the  head  with  a  club  to  make 
it  clear  that  that  isn't  to  be  done."  Well,  he  was  a  real  political 
leader  down  there  and  had  many  good  connections .  When  these  things 
would  start  coming  to  light,  he  put  the  pressure  on  the  party  leaders 
to  come  in  and  report  these  things. 

This  had  some  effect,  I  suppose,  publicly,  because  we  did  make 
it  apparent  that  we  were  going  after  Republicans,  but  it  had  a  lot 
of  effect  in  our  own  administration.   I  wasn't  getting  any  inter 
ference  from  the  White  House,  but  I  did  have  one  or  two — I  remember 
Jerry  Morgan,  who  was  the  president's  counsel,  talking  to  me  on  the 
phone  one  day  and  saying,  "What's  the  matter  with  you  fellows  down 
there?   Can't  you  indict  anybody  except  Republicans?" 

But  the  place  where  it  made  the  biggest  difference  for  me  was  in 
my  own  division.   They  realized  that  we  were  entirely  serious  when 
we  said  we  wanted  to  enforce  the  law  without  regard  for  party  con 
nections.   It  made  a  very  great  difference,  especially  in  the  civil 
rights  section,  where  the  men  had  been  kicked  around  by  people  that 
they  had  had  to  work  for  in  the  past,  and  they  were  very  skeptical 
of  me  and  of  our  administration  and  of  what  our  intentions  really 
were.   They  were  in  charge  of  our  election  fraud  cases  and  things 
of  this  kind.  When  I  got  them  in  and  said,  "Now,  on  these  election 
frauds  we  need  to  move  fast.   The  one  place  where  we  cannot  afford 
to  be  dilatory  or  hold  up  at  all  is  on  any  case  that  involves  a 
Republican.  We've  got  to  move,  keep  it  moving,  and  dispose  of  it." 
I  think  that  had  a  lot  to  do  with  building  up  confidence,  which  we 
did  develop. 

It  was  small  things  like  that,  where  we  tried  to  prosecute  every 
body  alike,  that  did  result  in  a  revival  of  confidence  in  the 
department,  we  felt.   By  the  time  Mr.  Brownell  left,  the  department 
was  very  well  regarded.   It  certainly  was  in  government.   It  was 
regarded  as  one  of  the  best  departments  that  we  had  functioning  in 
the  administration.   I  think  that  among  knowledgeable  people,  even 
among  the  media,  that  was  the  general  opinion  of  it  at  that  time. 

Of  course,  there  were  left  over  quite  a  number  of  cases  from  the 
earlier  administration.   I  was  not  at  all  enthusiastic  about  going 
to  any  great  length  to  try  to  dig  into  the  misdoings  or  alleged 


399 


Olney:   misdoings  of  people  who  had  left  office.   If  there  had  been  something 
very  flagrant  that  couldn't  be  overlooked,  of  course,  we  would  go 
after  it,  but  you  can't  do  everything  in  a  criminal  division,  and  we 
thought  that  our  efforts  would  be  better  spent  on  things  that  were 
current  and  trying  to  keep  our  own  house  in  order  than  on  trying  to 
prosecute  people  who  were  no  longer  in  power. 

But  when  it  came  to  St.  Louis,  we  had  no  choice.   There  was  a 
judge  out  there,  Judge  George  H.  Moore.   He  was  a  district  judge, 
the  chief  judge.   He  was  a  very,  very  powerful  man  locally,  very 
much  given  to  publicity.   He  had  a  tremendously  strong  press  behind 
him,  and  he  was  most  outspoken  on  racketeers  and  things  of  that  kind. 
He  had  been  on  the  bench  for  years . 

He  hated,  with  a  purple  passion,  these  people  who  had  been  in 
the  Internal  Revenue  Service  and  had  fixed  income  tax  cases.   I 
think  one  reason  for  this  was  that  he  himself  had  been  the  local 
collector  for  Internal  Revenue  before  he  became  a  judge.   I  think 
he  had  respect  for  the  office,  and  he  greatly  resented  its  being 
debased  and  misused.   Well,  he  was  insistent  that  we  have  a  grand 
jury  investigation  of  the  alleged  corruption  in  the  income  tax  cases 
there. 

We  went  over  the  cases  thoroughly.   There  must  have  been  eighteen 
or  nineteen  income  tax  cases  that,  on  their  face,  were  very,  very 
peculiar,  to  say  the  least.   There  were  some  cases  where  the  viola 
tion  was  outrageous,  and  yet  there  had  been  no  effective  prosecution. 
It  had  all  dwindled  away.   There  were  other  cases  where  convictions 
had  been  obtained,  usually  by  plea,  and  yet  there  was  no  appropriate 
sentence,  no  jail  sentence  and  no  substantial  fine.   There  were 
enough  of  those,  just  looking  at  the  results,  so  that  any  experienced 
Treasury  man  would  conclude  that  there  had  been  a  fix  in  there  on 
these  cases. 

They  had  all  been  handled  more  or  less  the  same  way.   They  had 
gone  through  the  ropes  in  the  Treasury  Department,  where  they're 
developed,  and  then  they're  referred  to  the  tax  division  of  the 
Department  of  Justice  for  prosecution.   The  bogging  down  was  in  the 
Justice  Department. 

Well,  we  had  a  grand  jury.   To  handle  all  those  cases,  we  didn't 
have  the  manpower  to  do  it.   It  would  mean  a  full-time  occupation 
for  some  really  experienced  lawyer,  not  somebody  just  getting  exper 
ience  in  trial  work,  some  really  experienced  cross-examiner  to 
handle  this.   So  we  got  a  man  named  Willis  Newcomb  from  New  York 
who  was  indeed  an  experienced  prosecutor  (he'd  been  a  successful  one 
on  Tom  Dewey's  staff)  and  he  took  this  assignment  on. 


400 


Olney:    It  went  on  for  a  good  many  weeks  without  his  coming  up  with  anything 
very  substantial,  nothing  substantial  in  the  way  of  evidence.  What 
he  did  come  up  with  was  plenty  of  smoke  that  convinced  us  all  that 
these  cases  had  indeed  been  fixed,  but  we  couldn't  prove  it.   The 
reason  was  that  nobody  would  talk  about  them. 

So  he  finally  came  to  me  and  said,  "Warren,  we're  not  going  to 
get  anywhere  unless  we  promise  somebody  some  immunity.  Maybe  we 
can  get  some  of  these  taxpayers  to  help  us  if  we  just  tell  them 
frankly  what  our  objectives  are,  and  assure  them  that  they're  not 
going  to  be  prosecuted  for  anything  they  tell  us." 

So  we  agreed  to  do  this.  We  discussed  this  with  Judge  Moore  in 
advance.  We  called  these  various  taxpayers  in  these  seventeen  or 
eighteen  cases  before  the  grand  jury  one  by  one,  and  the  gist  of 
what  Newcomb  said  to  them  was:  "The  government  is  not  interested  in 
you.  We're  not  trying  to  enforce  any  sort  of  penalty  against  you. 
Your  case  is  closed  as  far  as  we're  concerned.   But  what  we  are 
concerned  with  is  corruption  in  government,  and  how  your  case 
happened  to  be  closed,  the  circumstances.   If  you  will  tell  us 
truthfully  just  what  happened,  we  assure  you  that  no  action  will  be 
taken  against  you  no  matter  what  it  is  that  you  may  tell  us,  or 
what  it  is  you  may  have  done." 

Well,  this  didn't  work  on  any  of  the  taxpayers  until  we  got  to 
one  whose  name  was  Sachs.   He  said,  "Well,  I  will  tell  you  my  exper 
ience  if  I  can  be  assured  that  I'm  not  going  to  be  prosecuted  or  hit 
with  a  penalty  suit  or  something  like  that  for  such  information  as 
I  give  you.   It  may  be  that  I  can't  tell  you  very  much,  but  I'll 
tell  you  what  I  do_  know,  on  those  assurances."  This  was  all  made  a 
matter  of  record  before  the  grand  jury. 

He  was  a  shoe  merchant,  and  he  had  been  caught  evading  taxes  by 
the  grossest  fraud  imaginable.   I've  forgotten  now  what  it  was,  but 
there  were  whole  warehouses  full  of  shoes  that  he  didn't  declare 
and  things  like  that,  and  they  just  caught  him  cold.  Now,  he  had 
as  his  counsel  representing  him  some  very  reputable  St.  Louis  law 
yers,  and  then  there  had  been  a  change  in  the  representation.   They 
had  left  the  case  and  he  had  got  another  lawyer  from  Kansas  City, 
a  fellow  who  had  no  tax  background  particularly,  but  was  well  known 
as  an  associate  of  President  Truman  and  of  others  connected  with  the 
White  House. 

He  had  entered  a  plea  of  guilty  and  then  the  representation  had 
been  made  that  his  state  of  health  was  so  precarious  that  a  jail 
sentence  would  kill  him,  that  he  would  die  in  jail.   They  had  a 
doctor  who  said  he'd  examined  him  and  certified  to  this  condition. 


401 


Olney:   This  was  joined  in  by  the  Department  of  Justice,  the  assurances 
being  signed  by  T.  Lamar  Caudle,  who  was  the  assistant  in  charge 
of  the  tax  division  at  the  time.   As  a  result,  the  judge  had  not 
sent  him  to  jail,  but  had  imposed  a  fine  of  not  very  much;  it 
didn't  amount  to  much. 

Well,  that  was  the  circumstance  of  the  case  when  Sachs  said  he'd 
tell  us  what  else  had  happened.   He  said  that  it  had  cost  him  about 
$60,000  to  get  out  of  this  jam,  and  he  didn't  really  know  where  the 
money  had  gone.   He  thought  he'd  like  to  know  himself.   He  said  that 
his  regular  attorneys  had  told  him  that  he  had  no  chance  at  all  of 
beating  that  case  in  court,  and  that  if  he  were  to  stand  trial  he'd 
only  make  his  position  worse  by  denying  things  that  were  clearly 
provable.   Their  recommendation  had  been  that  he  plead  guilty  and 
throw  himself  on  the  mercy  of  the  court.   But  he  didn't  want  to  go 
to  jail,  and  they  couldn't  give  him  any  assurance  that  he  wouldn't. 

He  discussed  his  predicament  with  some  friend  of  his  who  said, 
"Well,  why  don't  you  go  see  this  lawyer  down  in  Kansas  City  because 
he's  pretty  good  at  keeping  people  out  of  jail  in  situations  like 
this.   He's  got  some  connections."   So  he  went  down  there  to  see 
him  and  this  lawyer,  whose  name  I've  forgotten,  told  him,  sure,  he'd 
take  his  case,  and  he  was  quite  sure  that  he  could  work  out  the 
arrangements.   It  would  cost  him  $60,000. 

So  Sachs  gave  him  $60,000  in  a  check.   He  produced  the  cancelled 
check.   Then  he  told  the  grand  jury  that  he  had  just  taken  his  law 
yer's  advice,  had  entered  a  plea  of  guilty  at  the  proper  time, 
stayed  away  from  the  court  and  from  St.  Louis.   It  seems  that  at 
the  time  that  he  was  supposed  to  come  up  for  his  sentence,  when  he 
was  supposed  to  be  so  desperately  ill  that  the  jail  sentence  would 
kill  him,  he  was  attending  a  shoe  merchants'  convention  in  Chicago, 
[laughter] 

Well,  the  key  to  the  matter,  of  course,  was  this  lawyer.   So  we 
explained  to  Sachs  that  there  was  a  legal  privilege  for  dealings 
between  an  attorney  and  his  client  which  meant  that  the  attorney 
couldn't  ordinarily  reveal  his  client's  affairs,  but  that  that  was 
the  privilege  that  could  be  waived  by  the  client  if  he  wanted  to. 
If  he,  Sachs,  wanted  to  waive  his  privilege,  his  attorney  would 
have  to  testify  as  to  what  happened  to  the  $60,000.  Well,  Sachs 
said  that  he  wanted  to  make  the  waiver,  and  he  did  so  in  writing. 

Of  course,  we  had  made  inquiries  about  this  attorney  and  found 
that  since  this  trial  he  had  retired.   He'd  retired  to  Puerto  Rico, 
but  the  agents  found  out  that  when  he  retired  he  had  not  taken  the 
records  of  his  law  practice  with  him,  that  he  had  boxed  them  and 
put  them  in  storage  with  a  rubber  company  that  he  used  to  represent. 
They  were  in  the  warehouse  of  this  rubber  company. 


402 


Olney:   Well,  we  got  out  a  subpoena  for  the  lawyer,  and  we  also  got  out  a 
search  warrant  for  his  records.  We  went  down  to  the  warehouse  and 
succeeded  in  getting  possession  of  them.  Well,  this  brought  him 
back  from  Puerto  Rico  in  a  terrible  hurry.   We  were  at  once  hit 
with  a  restraining  order.   The  lawyer  went  into  court  and  got  an 
injunction  against  our  opening  these  records,  claiming  all  sorts 
of  violations  of  his  rights.   Of  course,  we  had  to  wait  until  that 
litigation  was  decided  and  it  took  quite  a  long  time.  We  won  the 
case  in  the  district  court,  but  then  he  took  an  appeal  to  the  court 
of  appeals. 

Meanwhile,  we  were  going  ahead  as  best  we  could  with  our  grand 
jury  investigation  of  Sachs's  story.  We  could  corroborate  every 
thing  he  told  us.  We  got  a  great  deal  of  information  about  the 
movements  of  this  lawyer,  his  contact  with  other  people.  We  found 
that  he  was  a  bosom  pal  of  a  man  whose  name,  I  believe,  was  Wallace, 
who  was  one  of  the  principal  fund-raisers  in  the  Truman  campaign — 
that  would  be  the  one  in  '48,  the  one  he  was  supposed  to  lose.   He 
was  also  very  well  known  to  other  people  in  the  administration  and 
used  to  ride  with  the  president  occasionally  on  his  plane  from 
Kansas  City  to  Washington.   He  had  an  in,  all  right,  of  a  personal 
sort  with  these  people. 

But  we  were  having  difficulty  figuring  out  what  Sachs's  lawyer 
had  done  with  the  money.  We  had  some  most  puzzling  information. 
It  came  across  from  scrutiny  of  his  bank  accounts,  which  showed  us 
one  check  coming  to  him  from  Matt  Connelly,  who  was  President 
Truman's  appointments  secretary,  and  another  one  from  T.  Lamar 
Caudle,  who  was  assistant  attorney  general  in  charge  of  the  tax 
division.   This  mystified  us.  We  couldn't  imagine  why  those  men 
would  be  paying  money  to  this  lawyer.   We  would  have  thought  that 
the  money  would  have  been  going  the  other  way.   But,  anyway,  we 
had  that  much  information.  When  we'd  run  everything  out,  we  did 
have  enough  that  the  grand  jury  wanted  to  hear  from  both  Connelly 
and  Caudle  as  to  what  they  knew  about  this  character  and  this  case 
and  those  payments. 

We  asked  if  they  would  object  to  testifying  before  the  grand 
jury  and  they  said  they  wouldn't  at  all,  they'd  be  glad  to.   They 
appeared  voluntarily  and  waived  any  rights  that  they  might  have. 
Each  of  them  underwent  questioning  before  the  grand  jury.   They 
answered  many,  many  detailed  questions  from  Bill  Newcomb.   He's 
an  awfully  good  examiner  and  he  really  took  them  over  the  subject 
so  that  they  were  pinned  down,  one  way  or  another,  on  everything 
that  was  crucial  in  that  case.   But  there  were  no  admissions  of  any 
kind  that  seemed  to  them  to  be  in  the  least  significant.   They  went 
out  of  the  grand  jury  room. 


403 


Olney:   Well,  the  next  morning  the  court  of  appeals  made  its  decision  on 

this  search  warrant.   They  held  that  the  search  warrant  was  valid, 
and  we  were  entitled  to  open  and  inspect  the  lawyer's  files  on 
everything  that  related  to  Sachs.   But  we  were  not  entitled  to 
rummage  through  the  lawyer's  files,  and  they  appointed  a  proper 
monitor  to  go  through  the  records  and  give  us  what  was  pertinent 
for  our  case,  and  not  the  rest.   But  we  got  the  records. 

Boy,  here  it  all  was.   Here  was  the  $60,000.  We  found  that  there 
indeed  had  been  money  going  out  from  that  fund  to  both  Connelly 
and  Caudle,  and  some  of  it  had  gone  to  pay  for  oil  royalties  on  oil 
wells  in  Oklahoma  which  were  purchased  with  this  money  for  them. 
Then  Connelly  and  Caudle  would  get  the  income,  you  see,  from  the  oil 
wells. 

Stein:    So  that's  where  the  $60,000  went. 

Olney:   Well,  this  is  where  some  of  it  went,  just  some  of  it.   Then,  these 
checks  that  had  come  back  into  the  lawyer's  account  turned  out  to 
be  oil  royalty  checks  that  they  had  received  just  after  the  Sachs 
case  started  getting  publicized  as  being  reinvestigated.   That's 
when  these  checks  which  had  been  issued  to  Connelly  and  Caudle  came 
back  and  this  lawyer  put  them  in  his  account. 

Stein:   Did  you  speculate  about  why  those  checks  were  coming  back? 

Olney:   Well,  sure,  it  was  plain  enough.   They  didn't  want  to  get  caught 
with  those  checks,  so  they  sent  them  back. 

Now,  the  rest  of  the  money — I  don't  remember  how  much  there  was. 
I  think  they  got  about  two  thousand,  twenty-five  hundred  bucks 
apiece.   It  was  scrapings  off  the  edge.   The  main  piece  of  that 
money  went  to  Wallace  and  we  were  never  able  to  get  anything  out  of 
him  or  trace  it  any  further.   But  we  knew,  or  I  should  say  were 
satisfied,  that  it  was  a  campaign  contribution  that  went  to  the 
Democratic  party. 

Now,  when  we  went  back  below  the  surface,  we  found  that  this 
doctor's  certificate  on  Sachs  was  completely  false.   The  doctor  had 
never  even  seen  the  fellow.   This  was  all  worked  up  in  the  Justice 
Department,  and  we  could  show  that  Caudle  himself  was  the  one  who 
had  arranged  for  this.   So,  Connelly  and  Caudle  were  indicted  and 
brought  to  trial.   Bill  Newcomb  tried  them.   It  was  a  lengthy  trial. 
The  case  was  entirely  circumstantial.   There  was  nobody  who  ever 
blew  the  whistle  in  this  case.   Nobody  made  any  confession;  nobody 
made  any  admissions.   The  government's  case  was  entirely  by  wit 
nesses  testifying  to  this  fact  and  that  fact  and  putting  them  all 
together. 


404 


Olney:   Now,  it  meant  that  the  credibility  of  the  witnesses  was  not  open  to 
question.   It  was  just  a  question  of  when  you  had  all  those  facts, 
did  it  prove  the  case  or  not.   The  jury  thought  it  did,  and  they 
were  convicted.   They  were  tried  before  Judge  Rubey  M.  Hulen,  an 
excellent  trial  judge,  but  a  very  reserved  kind  of  man,  very  reserved, 
He  was  a  judge,  for  example,  that  would  never  permit  a  lawyer  to 
come  into  his  chambers.   He  would  always  insist  on  meeting  lawyers 
in  open  court.   It's  a  fine  principle  not  to  deal  in  private  with 
lawyers,  but  when  it's  an  invitation  to  attend  a  bar  dinner  or  some 
thing  like  that,  it's  carrying  it  a  little  far,  I  think. 

He  was  a  very,  very  strict-minded  man.   He  had  tried  the  case 
very  well,  very  successfully.   The  jury  returned  their  verdict  of 
guilty  and  then  there  was  a  motion  for  a  new  trial  pending.   The 
gist  of  the  motion  was  that  the  evidence  was  insufficient  to 
justify  the  verdict.   That  was  pending  before  Judge  Hulen,  and  he 
went  home  one  evening  and  went  strolling  out  in  the  field  and  put 
a  bullet  through  his  head,  right  at  that  stage  of  the  case.  Nobody 
ever  knew  whether  the  case  had  anything  to  do  with  it  or  not.   He 
was  obviously  totally  distraught  about  something.   Never  did  know. 

The  law  is  very  clear  about  what  the  procedure  should  be  if  a 
judge  dies  at  that  stage  of  the  case,  and  the  statute  was  followed 
carefully.   The  chief  judge  of  the  circuit  assigned  another  judge, 
Judge  Gunnar  H.  Nordbye  from  Minnesota,  to  come  down  and  hear  this 
motion  for  a  new  trial.   Since  it  was  on  the  sufficiency  of  the 
evidence,  it  was  the  kind  of  a  thing  in  which  a  new  judge  could 
pick  up  the  transcript  and  see  what  all  the  evidence  was.   This 
was  reviewed  by  Judge  Nordbye  and  he  concluded  that  the  evidence 
was  ample.   He  denied  the  motion  for  a  new  trial  and  proceeded  to 
pronounce  judgment. 

Well,  they  took  an  appeal,  and  I  thought  that  Bill  Newcomb,  who 
had  tried  the  case,  would  argue  the  appeal,  because  he  knew  the 
evidence  forwards  and  backwards .   But  we  had  a  brief  which  was 
written  in  the  appellate  section  in  the  criminal  division,  and  when 
Bill  got  that  brief  he  said  he  wouldn't  argue  the  case.   He  said, 
"This  brief  is  terrible,  awful.   This  is  just  the  kind  of  brief  we 
shouldn't  have.   There's  no  color  in  it;  there's  no  nothing.   It's 
just  the  barest  recital  of  the  facts  and  the  evidence,  and  that's 
all.   I  can't  argue  the  case  from  a  brief  like  that." 

Stein:   Who  had  prepared  the  brief? 

Olney:   Well,  it  was  prepared  in  my  division  by  a  young  man  named  Carl 

Imlay.   Bill  didn't  get  down  to  doing  this  until  about  ten  days  to 
two  weeks  before  the  case  was  set  for  argument.   I  realized  that 
I'd  have  to  argue  it  myself,  so  I  did. 


405 


Olney:   Now,  we'd  had  a  young  fellow  helping  Bill  throughout  the  trial 
named  St.  John  Barrett,  "Slim"  Barrett,  and  since  he  had  been 
present  at  the  trial,  we  got  the  transcript,  and  I  got  Slim  and 
Carl  Imlay's  brief,  and  we  went  to  St.  Louis  and  just  holed  up  in 
a  hotel  room  for  as  many  days  as  we  had  while  I  went  over  the 
thing  until  I  thought  I  had  a  grasp  of  it.  Well,  the  more  I 
studied  the  record,  the  more  I  studied  Imlay's  brief,  the  more 
convinced  I  was  that  this  was  exactly  the  kind  of  brief  we  needed. 
This  was  an  excellent  brief.   It's  true  it  had  no  color  in  it  or 
purple  prose,  but  this  was  a  circumstantial  case  and  every  single 
statement  of  fact  was  cited  to  the  page  in  the  transcript  where 
the  evidence  of  that  fact  appeared. 

When  the  day  came  for  the  argument,  I  felt  we  were  quite  well 
prepared,  and  we  went  into  court  and  argued  the  case.   The  defen 
dants  were  represented  by  Morris  Schenker  of  St.  Louis,  who  was 
and  is  well  known  as  a  lawyer  for  gangsters.   It  was  the  strangest 
argument  I  think  I  ever  made  in  an  appellate  court,  because  neither 
side  referred  to  one  single  previous  decision  on  any  point  by  a 
court,  and  neither  of  us  cited  a  single  statute.  We  didn't  talk 
about  anything  excepting  the  testimony  of  the  witnesses,  and  what 
the  reasonable  conclusions  were  to  be  drawn  from  it.   It  was  a 
lengthy  argument.   I  must  say  that  the  judges  were  most  attentive 
and  would  ask  questions  about  this  fact  and  the  other,  but  we  were 
so  well  prepared,  and  with  Slim  sitting  there  right  beside  me 
with  Carl's  brief,  we  were  able  to  answer  every  question  that  was 
asked  about  the  source  of  every  statement  that  was  made.   In  due 
course,  the  court  confirmed  the  conviction  unanimously. 

That  was  the  major  case  of  "cleaning  up  the  mess  in  Washington" 
that  I  myself  participated  in.   But  there  were  these  other  cases, 
like  Dan  Bolich,  whom  I  mentioned,  who  had  been  the  commissioner  of 
Internal  Revenue,  and  quite  a  few  others  that  were  prosecuted  around 
the  country. 

The  ones  that  we  prosecuted  were  ones  that  were  flagrant  and 
where  the  evidence  was  very  clear-cut.  We  made  no  attempt  to  get 
underlings  and  people  who  were  in  minor  positions  and  who  had  taken 
advantage  of  the  situation  and  that  kind  of  thing. 

Stein:   You  mentioned  St.  John  Barrett,  and  I  know  I  have  his  name  in  my 

notes  somewhere.   Did  he  later  turn  up  in  the  civil  rights  division? 

Olney:   Yes,  he  did.   He  asked  to  go  there.   I  can't  remember  whether  he 

asked  to  go  after  it  became  a  division  or  before;  I  think,  before. 
That's  because  he  believed  so  sincerely  in  civil  rights  and  he 
wanted  to  do  his  part  in  that  area. 


406 


Olney:   He  came  from  California,  from  Santa  Rosa.   He'd  been  in  the  district 
attorney's  office  here  in  Alameda  County,  and  he  happened  to  come 
back  on  a  sight-seeing  trip  during  the  summer  with  a  friend,  John 
Schour,  and  they  came  through  Washington  and  they  knew  Alan  Lindsay, 
who  was  one  of  my  assistants.   Alan  and  Dave  Luce,  who  was  also  in 
the  office,  sort  of  got  a  hold  of  them  and  they  talked  him  into 
taking  the  job.   [laughter]   And  so  he  did. 

He  was  assigned  to  trial  work  because  he  was  a  good  trial  man. 
He  helped  with  this  case,  and  then  later  he  went  into  civil  rights. 
After  that  he  went  into  the  Department  of  Health,  Education,  and 
Welfare,  and  now,  for  many  years  now,  he's  been  the  general  counsel 
of  that  department,  under  several  administrations.   He's  been  there 
right  along.   He  has  the  highest  civil  service  position  in  the  legal 
work  in  that  department.   He's  almost  ready  for  retirement,  which 
kills  me.  When  he  came  to  work  for  us  he  was  single,  and  he  went 
on  a  skiing  trip  to  Austria  and  ended  up  by  marrying  an  Austrian 
girl  he  met  skiing.   [laughter] 

Stein:    It  seems  his  vacations  end  up  with  rather  phenomenal  results. 

Olney:   Yes.  We've  often  tried  to  get  him  to  come  back  to  California,  which 
he  would  like  to  do,  but  she  won't  consider  it.   It  was  hard  enough 
making  friends  in  Washington.   She  isn't  going  to  go  through  that 
kind  of  experience  again.   She's  got  her  friends  there.   [laughter] 

Stein:   I  think  you  mentioned  to  Mrs.  Fry  and  Mort  Schwartz  that  you  thought 
that  later,  when  you  had  trouble  with  the  appropriations  committee 
when  you  were  administrator  in  the  courts,  that  might  have  been 
linked  to  the  Matt  Connelly  business. 

Olney:   Well,  I  do.   This  is  only  my  own  surmise;  I  have  no  evidence  for 
it.   But  Matt  Connelly  was  a  product  of  Brooklyn  politics  where 
John  Rooney  came  from,  who  was  the  chairman  of  our  subcommittee  on 
appropriations.   Rooney  and  Connelly  were  very  close.   I  think  that 
I  earned  some  ill  will  there  that  was  never  forgotten,  both  by 
initiating  the  investigation  and  prosecution  in  the  first  place 
and  by  taking  over  the  arguing  of  the  case  on  appeal  and  getting 
the  conviction  affirmed  in  the  second.   But  I  can't  prove  that. 
There  was  some  kind  of  block  like  that,  because  in  all  the  years  I 
was  with  the  courts  I  couldn't  get  anything  out  of  Mr.  Rooney,  even 
the  most  reasonable  requests.   And,  while  he  was  a  cantankerous 
fellow,  other  people  had  been  able  to  do  very  much  better  with  him 
than  I  had. 

Stein:    It  sounds  like  you  certainly  got  your  fill  of  playing  politics,  or 
having  politics  played  with  you. 


407 


Olney:   Well,  yes.   Yes,  of  course.   But  that  just  goes  with  the  job.   I 
thought  it  would  be  worse  than  it  was. 

The  thing  that's  hard  to  bring  home  is  the  fact  that  all  these 
things  are  going  on  at  the  same  time,  the  St.  Louis  investigation, 
our  legislative  efforts  on  civil  rights  and  Jencks,  these  internal 
security  matters;  they  were  all  happening  at  once.   It  was  just  a 
daily  crisis.  We  used  to  come  down  in  the  morning  and  wonder, 
"What's  the  crisis  going  to  be  today?" 

There's  one  thing  to  be  said  about  having  it  in  such  volume  like 
that,  that  you  either  get  used  to  it  or  it  kills  you.   And  I  did 
get  used  to  it.   I  never  let  it  worry  me  after  the  first  few  initia 
tions  I  had.   I  didn't  worry  about  it  at  all.   Then  on  top  of  that, 
I  had  known  that  this  kind  of  thing  would  happen.   I  had  always — 
all  the  time  we  were  there  it  was  with  my  fingers  crossed — felt  that 
something  would  happen  so  that  I  wouldn't  be  able  to  stay  anyhow, 
and  it  really  didn't  make  much  difference  whether  it  was  this  one 
or  something  else;  something  would  come  along  sooner  or  later, 
although  it  never  did. 

Stein:    I'm  amazed  that  you  could  keep  all  those  things  straight,  when  they 
were  happening  all  at  once. 

Olney:   But  you  can  see  how  mixed  up  my  recollections  are.   It's  partly 
because  it  was  so  confusing,  confusing  at  the  time.   It  was  very 
difficult.  Well,  like  this  matter:  I  know  that  Ed  Barrett  was 
back  there  and  gave  very  valuable  assistance  in  drawing  the  statute. 
But  now  I  can't  tell  you  whether  it  was  the  Jencks  Act  or  the  civil 
rights  bill. 


Civil  Rights 


Desegregating  Washington,  B.C. 


Stein:   Well,  this  may  be  a  good  time  to  move  on  to  civil  rights. 

Olney:   When  I  became  assistant  attorney  general,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  I 
did  not  realize  that  there  was  a  civil  rights  section  in  that 
division,  or  that  I  would  have  any  responsibility  for  civil  rights 
matters.   My  knowledge  of  civil  rights  was  pretty  dim,  to  say  the 
least.   Of  course,  I  knew  that  President  Truman  had  made  a  tremen 
dous  effort  to  get  some  civil  rights  legislation  through  the 
Congress  just  before  he  went  out  of  office,  and  he  had  been 


408 


Olney:   defeated  in  doing  it.   And  I  knew  that  there  were  stories  of  lynch- 
ings  in  the  South  and  things  of  that  kind,  and  racial  prejudice,  but 
I  really  hadn't  thought  about  it  very  much. 

Before  World  War  II,  we  didn't  have  many  black  people  in  Califor 
nia.   That  meant  that  the  race  problem  was  nothing  such  as  it  is 
now,  and  we  just  didn't  think  that  it  existed  out  here.   Then  all 
these  black  people  came  out  here  during  the  war.   I  was  in  the 
marine  corps  then,  and  after  I  got  out  I  was  so  busy  with  my  private 
practice,  trying  to  get  that  established,  and  with  the  crime  commis 
sion,  that  I  just  didn't  pay  any  attention  to  what  the  social  con 
ditions  were  around  here. 

So  when  I  went  to  Washington,  I  got  the  shock  of  my  life  when  I 
discovered  that  it  was  against  the  law  for  a  black  man  to  go  into  a 
restaurant  and  have  a  meal  in  the  restaurants  there  in  Washington 
where  white  people  ate.   They  couldn't  go  to  the  National  Theatre. 
And  then  the  streetcars — they  were  still  running  streetcars  then 
that  went  out  to  Virginia — they  required  the  blacks  to  sit  in  the 
back  section  of  the  car.   They  couldn't  sit  in  the  other  part  of 
the  car  at  all.  Well,  I'd  never  seen  anything  like  this,  and  it 
incensed  me,  very  frankly.   I  thought  it  was  just  outrageous. 

When  I  got  into  the  office  and  found  that  my  division  did  have 
some  responsibilities  on  this  matter,  I  got  very  interested.   I 
think  I  should  say  what  a  very,  very  small  section  this  civil  rights 
section  was.   I  had  Arthur  B.  Caldwell,  who  was  the  chief,  and  then 
Sydney  Brody  and  Maceo  W.  Hubbard  (he  was  a  black  man) ,  and  James 
Kildridge  and  Leo  Meltzer  and  William  O'Hear  and  Francis  Pohlhaus 
and  Henry  Putzel,  and  that  was  all.   That  was  the  whole  staff  of 
lawyers  to  take  care  of  these  very  difficult  civil  rights  problems. 
It  was  quite  in  contrast  to  what  I  inherited  in  the  internal  secur 
ity  section. 

The  civil  rights  lawyers,  I  think,  at  the  outset,  were  very 
skeptical  of  me  and  I  was  skeptical  of  them.   I  couldn't  imagine 
why  they  would  be  there  doing  this  kind  of  work  and  I  was  not  aware 
that  anything  much  had  ever  been  accomplished.   Caldwell  came  from 
Arkansas  and  that  seemed  like  a  rather  strange  place  of  origin  for 
somebody  who  was  chief  of  the  section.   But  I  hadn't  been  there  long 
before  I  found  that  this  group  was  sincere,  dedicated,  hard-working, 
and  very  experienced  in  this  field. 

They  had  to  educate  me  in -civil  rights  law.   The  statutes  that  we 
had  to  work  with  were  so  vague  and  so  difficult  of  application  that 
the  legal  questions  that  would  come  up  in  these  cases  were  very, 
very  tricky.   I  would  say  it  was  almost  a  year  that  I'd  still  be 
saying  to  them.  "Well,  why  can't  we  do  this  in  this  case,  or  that 
in  the  other  case?"  and  they  would  have  to  explain  the  law  to  me. 
The  difficulty  was  that  our  statutes  didn't  fit. 


409 


Stein:   What  sort  of  things  were  they  working  on? 

Olney:   Well,  there  were  a  great  many  things  that  they  were  working  on, 
anything  from  school  problems  to  discrimination  in  employment  to 
maltreatment  of  prisoners,  things  of  this  kind.   I  can't  go  over 
all  that  they  were  working  on;  it  would  be  too  long.   But  there 
were  some  things  that  were  very  interesting  that  were  going  on. 

I  should  say  that  I  found  that  my  predecessors  had  been  doing  a 
very  good  job  through  this  section  in  trying  to  enforce  civil  rights. 
There  was  no  pulling  of  punches  in  this  section  by  the  lawyers  at 
all.   They'd  had  real  problems  going  way  back.   Caldwell  told  me 
that  he  once  had  an  assistant  attorney  general  who  was  from  the 
South  who  said  to  him,  "Well,  you  know,  A.B.,  we're  both  from  the 
South.   Once  in  a  while  they  do  lynch  a  nigger  or  two  down  there, 
but  you  know  it's  always  the  bad  niggers  that  get  lynched." 

Stein:   This  is  the  federal  government  talking. 

Olney:   Well,  it's  a  little  difficult  for  a  civil  rights  section  to  function 
very  well  under  a  man  like  that,  but  they  had  done  it.   I  came  to 
have  a  lot  of  respect  for  them. 

Well,  one  of  the  interesting  things  that  was  going  on  was  litiga 
tion  in  the  District  of  Columbia  over  this  matter  of  excluding 
blacks  from  hotels  and  other  places  of  public  resort.   There  was  an 
old  statute  that  applied  to  the  District  of  Columbia  which  was  still 
on  the  books,  but  it  had  never  been  enforced  and  everybody  had  sup 
posed  that  it  had  been  superseded  in  some  way.   But  I  believe  it  was 
probably  Thurgood  Marshall  who  worked  out  the  theory  that  that 
statute  was  still  in  effect. 

At  any  rate,  some  private  parties  through  the  NAACP  brought  suit 
to  declare  that  these  statutes  that  outlawed  segregation  in  the 
District  of  Columbia  were  still  effective  and  active  and  applicable 
there.  We  couldn't  get  into  the  case  because  the  government  had  no 
standing  in  the  lawsuit;  it  required  a  private  person  who  was 
injured  to  bring  the  suit.   And  we  couldn't  even  get  into  it  unless 
we  were  asked  to  appear  as  a  friend  of  the  court,  and  the  court 
never  asked. 

That  suit  was  brought  during  the  time  of  our  predecessors.   Any 
way,  we  hadn't  been  there  very  long  when  the  suit  was  decided  by 
the  court  of  appeals  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  which  ruled  that 
the  statute  was  still  effective  and  that  this  kind  of  discrimination 
was  outlawed  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 


410 


Stein:   That's  rather  far-reaching. 

Olney:   Well,  of  course.   There  had  been  those  who  had  said  that  there  was 
going  to  be  all  kinds  of  trouble  and  whatnot,  but  there  was  no 
trouble  of  any  sort,  none  at  all,  on  that  kind  of  thing.  Never  has 
been.   So  that  kind  of  discrimination  didn't  last  very  long  after  I 
was  there. 

Then  about  that  time  the  Department  of  the  Interior  announced 
that  there  was  no  longer  going  to  be  segregation  in  any  form  in  any 
national  park  and  the  same  way  with  the  national  forests.  Well,  it 
seemed  to  us  that  that  was  a  great  step  and  that  it  would  probably 
apply  to  all  the  federal  parks,  but  we  discovered  that  Rock  Creek 
Park  was  in  a  different  status  and  we  had  to  do  a  lot  of  negotiating 
to  get  acceptance  of  the  idea  of  desegregation  in  Rock  Creek  Park, 
but  this  was  worked  out  by  negotiation  and  agreement. 

Then  there  was  the  last  remaining  thing,  some  small  parks  in  the 
city  of  Washington.   It  turned  out  that  jurisdiction  over  those  was 
not  in  any  of  the  federal  departments,  but  it  was  in  the  District 
of  Columbia  government.   It  added  up  to  the  corporation  counsel  being 
the  controlling  figure  in  what  was  to  be  done  and  said  about  these 
little  parks. 

There  was  one  called  Turkey  Thicket.   I  don't  know  how  it  got  its 
name  because  it  hadn't  seen  a  turkey  in  two  hundred  years  and  a 
thicket  probably  as  long  as  that  [laughter] ,  but  it  was  in  one  of 
those  areas  that  was  built  up  with  brick  houses,  you  know,  the 
typical  Washington  type,  all  around  it,  all  around  this  small  block. 
The  block  had  an  iron  fence  around  it  with  a  gate  and  a  lock,  and 
it  was  originally  built  and  used  by  nannies  to  bring  their  charges 
out  there  in  their  baby  buggies  and  take  the  sun  and  whatnot.   The 
houses  were  built  that  way — they  all  had  servants'  quarters  and 
nannies,  and  there  were  kids,  and  they  had  the  fence  and  had  them 
all  locked  in  there. 

Well,  this  had  been  reserved  for  white  children  all  these  years. 
But  the  neighborhood  had  changed  considerably  and  the  percentage  of 
whites  was  down  to  something  like  twenty  to  thirty  percent,  and  the 
rest  of  them  were  blacks.   Of  course,  it  wasn't  being  used  by 
nannies  anymore;  it  was  being  used  by  children  to  play  in.   Here 
were  these  white  children  having  a  whole  block  there  to  play  in, 
all  locked  away  by  themselves,  and  the  black  neighbors  couldn't 
play  in  the  place  just  because  they  were  black. 

Well,  Caldwell  thought  something  ought  to  be  done  about  that, 
and  so  did  I,  and  so  I  had  him  take  it  up  with  the  corporation 
counsel.   I  don't  know  how  many  times  he  went  down  there  to  see 
him,  but  this  fellow  was  just  adamant.   Caldwell  would  say,  "Look, 


411 


Olney:   you  can  read  the  Supreme  Court  decisions  and  you  can  see  what  the 
general  policy  of  the  administration  is  elsewhere,  and  what's  hap 
pened  to  the  segregation  in  restaurants  and  all,  and  this  thing  we 
just  can't  continue  to  tolerate." 

But  it  just  made  no  difference  to  this  fellow.  He  said,  "Well, 
I'm  not  going  to  desegregate  those  parks  until  some  court  orders 
me  to.  It's  going  to  take  litigation  to  persuade  me.  These  other 
decisions  aren't  applicable  and  we're  just  going  to  have  to  liti 
gate  it."  Of  course,  that  just  meant  dragging  it  out  for  another 
two  or  three  years. 

So  when  Caldwell  came  back  from  one  of  those  meetings  where  it 
was  very  clear  that  there  was  no  other  way  of  settling  with  the 
fellow — I  can't  remember  how  we  delivered  the  message,  whether  we 
called  him  up  on  the  phone  (I  think  I  did  because  I  know  I  wouldn't 
have  written  a  letter  on  this) — but  anyway,  I  got  in  touch  with 
him  (I  think  it  was  on  the  phone)  and  told  him  that  we  couldn't 
tolerate  continuation  of  this  segregation  in  Turkey  Thicket  any 
more.   If  we  were  going  to  have  to  litigate,  well,  we'd  litigate. 

I  thought  I  ought  to  tell  him  the  form  the  litigation  was  going 
to  take.   I  said,  "We're  not  going  to  go  into  court  and  ask  for  an 
injunction.  We're  going  to  submit  these  facts  and  your  interviews 
with  Mr.  Caldwell  to  the  grand  jury,  and  we're  going  to  ask  for  an 
indictment  of  you,  not  the  people  who  are  out  there  at  the  park  or 
who  work  for  you,  but  you,  for  violating  the  civil  rights  statutes. 
We  can  litigate  if  we  must,  but  you're  going  to  be  litigating  it 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  prisoner  in  the  dock."  Well,  that 
changed  his  mind,  and  they  opened  Turkey  Thicket  up. 

It  was  that  kind  of  activity  that  we  were  engaging  in.   We  were 
trying  to  do  this  attracting  as  little  attention  as  possible.   There 
were  a  lot  of  reasons  why  we  didn't  want  to  attract  attention.   In 
the  first  place,  when  you're  dealing  with  things  like  that  and  try 
ing  to  ameliorate  a  situation,  the  less  said  about  it  the  better, 
so  that  feelings  don't  get  aroused  and  people  don't  get  in  a  turmoil. 
Then  another  reason  was  that  we  knew  that  it  was  a  politically  hot 
subject.   There  were  very  active,  strong  segregationist  politicians 
who  might  very  well  pick  up  our  activities  and  try  to  block  us, 
make  problems  for  us.  We  didn't  want  to  have  that  happen.   So  we 
not  only  made  no  effort  to  publicize  what  we  were  doing,  but  we 
tried  to  avoid  publicity.   It  did  have  the  effect  of  persuading  all 
the  liberals  in  Congress  that  the  administration  wasn't  doing  a 
darn  thing  on  civil  rights,  but  you  can't  have  it  both  ways. 

We  were  doing  that  kind  of  thing,  and  I  should  say  that  this  was 
always  with  Mr.  Brownell's  full  knowledge  and  approval.  When  I  was 
in  New  York  and  talked  with  him  about  coming  into  the  department, 


412 


Olney:   he  didn't  say  anything  about  civil  rights.   I  sometimes  wondered  if 
he  even  knew  that  we  had  civil  rights  in  the  department,  but  natu 
rally  we  had  many  discussions  on  the  subject  after  he  became  attorney 
general.   His  ideas  and  mine  were  identical,  and  they  were  that 
segregation  was  a  curse  in  any  and  all  forms  and  we  should,  for  the 
good  of  the  country — it  wasn't  a  matter  of  politics — be  doing  every 
thing  we  could  to  eliminate  it.  We  should  be  proceeding  effectively, 
but  hopefully  with  no  more  irritation  than  was  necessary.   So  he  was 
approving  all  that  we  were  doing. 


The  Civil  Rights  Bill  of  1956-1957* 


Olney:   We  kept  this  kind  of  thing  going  as  best  we  could,  but  meantime  I 
was  getting  a  real  education  in  civil  rights  law,  and  by  1955  I 
think  I  knew  something  about  it.   And,  thanks  to  my  section,  I  had 
some  real  understanding  and  grasp  of  the  principles  and  needs. 

We  had  talked  in  the  section  from  time  to  time  about  the  Truman 
administration's  approach  and  their  efforts.   So  I  had  a  concept  of 
what  they  had  been  trying  to  do,  which  was  usually  to  get  legislation 
through  to  outlaw  lynching  and  the  poll  tax,  and  to  make  a  declara 
tion  of  rights  here,  there,  and  the  other  place  on  voting  and  things 
like  that.  We  understood  what  the  program  had  been,  but  it  wasn't 
a  very  adequate  program.   They  wanted  to  have  a  commission,  and 
commissions  are  all  right,  but  they  make  investigations  and  make 
reports  and  usually  the  reports  just  sit  on  the  shelves  and  gather 
dust. 


*The  Eisenhower  administration's  civil  rights  legislation  was  the 
subject  of  a  series  of  interviews  conducted  by  Dori  Dressander 
with  Mr.  Olney  in  the  spring  and  summer  of  1978.  Ms.  Dressander 
interviewed  both  Mr.  Olney  and  Herbert  Brownell  in  preparation 
for  a  book  she  was  writing,  to  be  published  in  1983.   Upon 
publication  of  the  book,  Ms.  Dressander  will  deposit  copies  of 
the  interview  transcripts  at  Notre  Dame  University  and  at  The 
Bancroft  Library.   These  interviews  cover  the  subject  of  the 
1956-1957  civil  rights  legislation  in  greater  detail  than  do  the 
interviews  bound  herein,  and  the  reader  is  therefore  urged  to 
consult  both  sets  of  interviews. 


413 


Olney:   With  the  experience  that  I'd  had  with  the  civil  rights  section,  it 

was  apparent  to  me  that  what  was  needed  wasn't  any  more  declarations 
of  rights.  What  we  needed  were  tools,  the  legal  tools,  the  machin 
ery,  so  that  the  government  could  go  into  court  in  proper  cases  and 
get  observance  of  the  law.   There  had  been  little  attention  paid  to 
that  in  these  other  earlier  proposals . 

I  guess  here  I  ought  to  mention  J.W.  Anderson's  book,  Eisehnower , 
Brownell  and  the  Congress,  which  is  subtitled,  The  Tangled  Origins 
of  the  Civil  Rights  Bill,  1956-57,  published  by  the  University  of 
Alabama  Press.   This  is  an  account  which  is  far  more  complete  than 
anything  I  can  give,  but  I  have  read  it,  and  to  the  best  of  my  know 
ledge  it  is  accurate.   It  has  discussion  of  the  background  of  the 
civil  rights  bill  that  was  eventually  passed  which  I've  never  seen 
printed  anywhere  else. 

At  any  rate,  to  go  back  to  my  own  account,  Anderson  thinks  that 
the  president's  heart  attack  had  something  to  do  with  this,  but  I 
don't  know  whether  it  did  or  not.   I  only  know  that  in  December  of 
'55,  Mr.  Brownell  told  me  that  he  thought  the  time  had  come  when  we 
ought  to  try  to  shape  up  what  we  thought  a  really  good,  adequate 
civil  rights  statute  ought  to  be. 

This  was  entrusted  to  me  to  undertake.   I  did  it  with  the  section 
without  telling  them  anything  about  objectives,  excepting  to  say 
that  we  had  all  experienced  the  weakness  of  our  tools  in  trying  to 
make  civil  rights  a  reality  and  the  time  had  come  when  we  ought  to 
examine  the  question  from  that  point  of  view  alone:  what  do  we  need? 
What  do  we  need  in  the  way  of  basic  authority  in  the  Department  of 
Justice  for  procedures,  and  what  kind  of  procedures  in  order  to  do 
the  job  that  ought  to  be  done? 

Well,  Anderson  recounts  in  there  all  the  different  forms  that 
this  effort  took.   It's  very  interesting,  I  think,  to  read  it, 
because  we  started  in  by  trying  to  enumerate  all  the  rights,  and 
discarded  that.   The  section's  views,  interestingly  enough,  centered 
mostly  on  changes  and  enlargements  in  the  criminal  statutes.   I 
suppose  that's  because  the  only  civil  rights  statutes  they  had  were 
criminal  statutes. 

If  I  made  any  contribution  to  it,  and  I  think  I  did,  it  was  my 
belief  that  good  civil  remedies  would  be  far  more  effective  in  this 
field  than  criminal  ones.   The  reason  that  I  was  of  that  view  was 
the  experience  that  I  had  had  with  injunction  suits  and  civil 
remedies  of  that  kind  here  in  California  against  gambling  ships  and 
the  wire  service  and  cases  like  that,  where  we  were  able  to  be 
effective  through  a  civil  action  of  that  kind  where  we  couldn't  get 
to  first  base  with  ordinary  criminal  prosecutions,  even  though  the 
criminal  laws  were  ther£  and  clearly  applicable. 


414 


Olney:   Well,  Anderson  describes  how  this  went  on  and  how  finally  we  had  a 

big  meeting  with  people  in  the  department  discussing  this.   The  more 
we  talked  about  it,  the  more  importance  all  of  us  could  see  in  the 
civil  remedies  that  were  involved.  We  ended  up  with  four  major 
points.   One  of  them  would  be  a  new  civil  rights  division;  a  second, 
that  there  be  a  civil  rights  commission.   These  were  old  chestnuts 
that  had  been  proposed  before.   A  third  was  that  there  would  be  a 
provision  authorizing  the  government  to  resort  to  the  courts  by  way 
of  injunction  and  otherwise  to  prevent  violations  of  civil  rights 
and  to  enjoin  their  continuance,  and  to  do  that  without  having  to 
be  requested  to  be  a  friend  of  the  court  or  brought  in  by  a  private 
party.   Then  there  was  a  fourth  one  on  voting  rights  were  the  idea 
was  to  make  it  possible  for  the  government  to  take  effective  action 
to  avoid  such  things  as  this  mass  disenf ranchisement  of  voters  that 
had  gone  on  in  the  past.   Later,  in  '56,  it  happened  on  even  a 
greater  scale. 

Stein:   And  was  that  also  primarily  through  civil  means? 

Olney:   Yes,  yes,  although  I  think  there  were  some  criminal  penalties 

attached.   I  guess  not;  I  think  those  were  civil.   The  reason  is 
simply  this:  in  the  first  place,  to  invoke  a  criminal  penalty  the 
act  has  to  be  done  and  completed;  it  can't  be  something  that's 
merely  threatened.   In  the  second  place,  if  it  is  done,  it's  done 
by  the  local  clerk,  if  it's  voter  registration,  or  by  some  other 
officer  who  may  be  violating  the  law,  but  all  he's  really  doing  is 
carrying  out  what  he  thinks  public  opinion  wants  him  to  do  and 
expects  him  to  do.   It  makes  it  very  difficult  to  get  a  conviction 
in  a  criminal  case  like  that.   And  if  you  do  get  a  conviction,  it 
is  extremely  difficult  for  the  judge  to  know  what  to  do  with  the 
fellow  by  way  of  penalty. 

The  criminal  law  is  just  not  a  suitable  kind  of  remedy.   In  a 
court  of  equity  in  equitable  proceeding  you  can  get  an  injunction, 
and  you  may  be  able  to  stop  it,  or  if  it  goes  on,  you  may  be  able 
to  prevent  its  repetition.  And  then  you  can  bring  the  man  before 
the  court  for  contempt  of  court,  which  is  a  failure  to  obey  the 
order  of  the  court  after  full  notice  and  the  rest  of  it,  and  even 
have  a  jury  trial.   That's  not  so  difficult  to  get  a  conviction 
of  contempt  or  failure  to  obey  after  he's  had  every  chance  to 
answer  and  explain  and  be  heard  and  all  the  rest  of  it,  as  it  would 
be  in  an  ordinary  criminal  statute. 

Anyhow,  we  had  these  bills  that  we  were  working  on  and  Mr. 
Brownell  took  them  down  to  the  White  House  to  present  them  to  the 
cabinet  as  a  possible  administration  proposal.   It  went  over  like 
a  lead  balloon. 


415 


Olney:   I  never  did  like  most  of  those  cabinet  members.   Most  of  them  were 
rich  men  who  had  no  real  concept  at  all  of  what  was  involved  in 
racial  relations.   They  were  the  type  who  didn't  want  to  rock  the 
boat  and  stir  up  things:  Truman  had  taken  a  terrible  licking,  and 
why  should  we?   They  were  very  discouraging.   And  then,  of  course, 
as  Anderson  recounts,  J.  Edgar  Hoover  showed  up  down  there  too,  and 
Brownell  took  him  down  there  in  the  belief  that  he  was  going  to 
support  this  proposal  somewhat,  but  he  did  just  the  opposite.   He 
tried  to  torpedo  the  idea  of  doing  anything  excepting  having  a 
commission  and  a  new  assistant  attorney  general.   It  was  very  dis- 
couragine. 

Now,  it's  Mr.  Brownell 's  conduct,  right  along  here,  that  explains, 
if  it  needs  any  explaining,  my  continued  admiration  for  that  man. 
He  was  not  discouraged  by  this  kind  of  reception,  and  he  made  up  his 
mind  to  continue.  He  discussed  it  with  me  at  some  length.   The 
reason  for  his  choice  was  simply  a  matter  of  morals:  this  is  the 
right  thing  and  we've  got  to  do  it  because  it's  right.   There 
shouldn't  be  any  politics  about  it. 

He  said,  "It's  just  loaded  with  politics  all  over,  but  we've  got 
to  go  ahead  with  it.   The  president  is  in  no  condition  to  even  con 
sider  it,  in  his  state.   But  it  doesn't  mean  we  ought  to  pull  out, 
just  because  some  of  the  cabinet  members  don't  like  it."   So  we 
went  ahead  and  got  our  bill  in  just  as  good  shape  as  we  could  do, 
and  he  got  permission  from  the  cabinet  to  introduce  the  two 
measures,  or  two  proposals,  make  the  two  proposals  to  the  Congress, 
as  administration  proposals,  one  for  the  assistant  attorney  general 
ship  and  the  other  for  the  commission,  but  not  the  other  two. 

Mr.  Brownell  would  not  compromise  for  just  those  two  proposals, 
so  there  were  weeks  and  weeks  of  dragging  around,  and  he  just 
wouldn't  take  no  for  an  answer.   Finally  it  was  agreed  that  he 
could  present  the  other  two  as  his  own  proposals,  the  attorney 
general's  proposals.  Well,  I  won't  go  into  all  the  details, 
because  they  are  so  well  stated  elsewhere. 

Well,  we  got  the  four  bills  presented  in  spite  of  the  cabinet. 
The  way  it  was  done  was  to — we  discussed  with  Congressman  [Kenneth] 
Keating  and — I  forget  who  the  Senator  was — in  advance  about  the 
situation.  When  Mr.  Brownell  appeared  before  the  House  committee 
with  these  proposals,  he  presented  the  first  two  and  then,  by 
agreement,  Mr.  Keating  asked  him,  "There  have  been  these  other 
problems  in  civil  rights  that  have  arisen  and  we  know  that  the 
department  has  given  consideration  to  those  problems.  Would  the 
department  be  able  to  draft  any  legislation  to  meet  them?" 
Brownell ?s  response  was,  "Yes,  we  certainly  could  and,  indeed, 
we  have.  We  have  drafts  right  here."  So  Keating  asked  for  them 
and  they  were  produced,  so  that  all  four  bills  got  there  at  the 
same  time. 


416 


Olney:   The  curious  thing  is  that  the  press  never  caught  on  to  this.   The 
press  was  aware  that  there  had  been  a  long  delay  between  the 
president's  State  of  the  Union  message,  in  which  he  had  said  that 
he  was  going  to  present  some  civil  rights  legislation,  and  the 
production  of  the  administration  bills. 

Now,  the  Congress  itself  had  had  some  bills — Senator  [Thomas  C.] 
Hennings  had  some  bills  that  his  committee  was  working  on.   It  was 
the  same  old  stuff,  anti-lynching  and  things  like  that,  but  the 
administration  bills  weren't  forthcoming  until  way  along — I  think 
it  was  April — way  along  in  the  session.   In  fact,  it  has  sometimes 
been  said  that  it  wasn't  introduced  until  that  late  in  order  that 
there  couldn't  be  adequate  consideration,  and  also  in  order  to 
divide  the  Democrats  for  political  reasons. 

A  lot  of  nonsense.   They  had  no  idea  what  was  going  on  behind 
the  scenes.   The  difficulty  was  right  in  the  White  House,  getting 
approval  for  these  things.   So  we  breathed  a  sigh  of  relief  when 
the  media  didn't  pick  this  up  and  didn't  appreciate  the  fact  that 
there  was  any  difference  in  sponsorship  on  those  bills,  two  with 
administration  approval  and  two  without.   They  just  thought  the 
administration  approved  all  four  of  them. 

Stein:   Anderson  mentioned  that  and,  I  think,  attributes  it  to  the  fact 
that  the  media  weren't  taking  civil  rights  legislation  seriously 
at  all  at  that  point . 

Olney:   No,  and  there  were  several  reasons  for  that.   One  of  them  was  that 
we  were  so  quiet  about  the  work  we'd  done  on  civil  rights.  We 
didn't  blow  our  own  horn,  didn't  say  anything  about  it.   So  they 
thought  that  we  weren't  doing  anything  about  it  and  that  we  weren't 
interested  in  it.   Another  reason  for  it  that  he  [Anderson]  brings 
out  there  is  that  we  knew  that  there  were  people  in  our  own  admin 
istration  who  were  very  much  opposed  to  any  real  change  as  far  as 
civil  rights  were  concerned,  some  of  them  on  political  grounds, 
thinking  that  we  couldn't  do  any  better  than  Truman  had  done.   But 
we  had  our  share  of  segregationists  in  there  among  the  Republicans 
too,  right  in  our  own  administration.   This  led  us  to  believe  that 
we  just  had  no  way  of  accomplishing  anything  excepting  to  keep  our 
own  counsel  and  to  go  ahead  with  our  own  plan  and  not  make  announce 
ments  that  simply  would  be  alarms  for  the  opposition  to  rally  around. 

Furthermore,  they  didn't  understand  the  bill.   Nobody  had  been 
talking  about  injunctions  and  that  kind  of  remedy,  and  the  potential 
had  escaped  them  completely. 

Stein:   Again,  just  as  well. 


417 


Olney:   Yes,  just  as  well.   So  that's  the  reason  that  we  took  the  strange 
course  that  we  did.   And,  of  course,  it  did  have  some  serious 
disadvantages.   It  meant  that  it  was,  indeed,  very  late  in  the 
session  that  the  bill  was  introduced,  but  it's  amazing  the  progress 
that  we  were  able  to  make  in  that  Congress.  We  did  get  a  bill 
through  each  house. 

It  wasn't  the  same  bill,  so  we  didn't  get  a  completely  adequate 
law,  but  I  don't  believe  that  the  1963  civil  rights  act  ever  could 
have  been  passed  without  this  experience  in  '57. 

[Interview  12:  April  23,  1974] 

Stein:   John  Anderson  in  his  book  mentions  Sydney  Brody  as  one  of  the 
draftsmen  of  the  bill  in  1957. 

Olney:   Yes,  that's  right.   He  was  one  of  the  lawyers  in  the  civil  rights 

section.   He  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  drafting  our  bill  and  also 
the  accompanying  statement  that  the  attorney  general  was  going  to 
make  to  the  houses  of  Congress  when  he  presented  these  proposals. 

But  as  you  can  see,  the  problem  for  us  was  initially  to  get  the 
administration  committed  to  any  kind  of  a  civil  rights  legislative 
program.  Mr.  Brownell  was  faced  with  a  sick  president  and  with 
cabinet  members ,  many  of  whom  were  not  really  in  sympathy  with  the 
civil  rights  proposals  that  he  had  in  mind  making. 

Stein:   Anderson  also  mentioned  that  when  the  bill  was  first  introduced  into 
Congress  in  1956,  the  White  House  "refused  to  go  along  with  it." 
One  reason,  according  to  Anderson,  was  that  Senator  William  Knowland 
had  read  the  account  of  the  bill  in  the  New  York  Times  and  was  upset 
by  it  and  had  bent  the  president's  ear,  so  to  speak. 

Olney:   Well,  this  is  the  information  that  I  had  and  believed  to  be  true. 

But  I  was  never  at  those  White  House  meetings  when  Senator  Knowland 
was  there.   I  was  told  that  Senator  Knowland  was  indeed  upset  about 
this  and  the  reason  for  it  was  that  he  was  convinced  that  it  was 
not  possible  to  pass  any  kind  of  a  civil  rights  bill  through  the 
Congress  at  that  time  excepting  one  that  would  do  no  more  than 
create  a  commission  and  a  new  division  in  the  Department  of 
Justice. 

His  opposition,  I  believe,  was  primarily  on  political  grounds. 
He  just  didn't  think  it  could  be  passed  through  the  Congress,  and 
didn't  want  the  administration  to  repeat  the  experience  that  the 
Truman  administration  had  had  of  having  a  tremendous  fight  and 
being  defeated. 

Stein:   I  understand,  though,  that  by  '63  he  was  one  of  the  prime  movers 
in  the  Senate  to  get  the  bill  through. 


418 


Olney:   But  an  awful  lot  had  happened  during  that  time.   The  introduction 
of  the  bill  and  the  efforts  that  were  made  in  '57  showed  very 
clearly  that  there  was  an  excellent  chance  of  passing  a  really 
good  civil  rights  measure.   The  '57  bill  almost  got  through  in  its 
entirety,  and  it  might  well  have  passed  with  all  four  parts  if  it 
had  been  possible  to  present  the  bill  at  an  earlier  time  so  that 
there  would  have  been  more  opportunity  for  debate  and  discussion 
before  Congress  adjourned. 

Now,  the  reasons  for  that  delay,  of  course,  as  you  see,  were 
the  problems  that  we  were  having  with  the  White  House,  not  that 
we  didn't  have  the  bill  and  the  proposal.   But  what  happened  in 
'57  did  make  it  clear  that  there  was  a  great  deal  more  support 
than  Senator  Knowland  and  others  at  the  White  House  realized  for 
such  a  measure.  When  '57  had  passed,  it  was  evident  that  there 
was  not  only  support  in  the  Congress,  but  there  was  a  great  deal 
of  public  support  in  favor  of  such  measures . 

Stein:   And  was  President  Eisenhower  by  that  time  more  favorably  disposed? 

Olney:   Well,  this  is  very  difficult  for  me  to  say,  and  I  don't  know. 

President  Eisenhower  never  showed  anything  that  I  would  regard  as 
interest  in  the  civil  rights  legislation.   It's  easy  to  say  it's 
because  he  wasn't  interested  in  the  subject.   But  I  think  this  is 
probably  not  being  fair  to  the  man. 

He  had  a  concept  of  what  his  role  was  as  president  that,  I  think, 
events  showed  was  not  realistic.   He  thought  of  himself  as  sort  of 
a  reconciler  of  the  people  who  were  favoring  integration  of  the 
school  system  and  the  elimination  of  all  segregation  on  the  one 
hand  and  those  southerners  who  were  talking  about  massive  resistance 
on  the  other.   He  was  trying  not  to  give  offense  to  either  side. 

Well,  I  believe  that  this  was  really  a  tragic  mistake.   If,  after 
Brown  v.  Board  of  Education  had  been  decided,  the  president  had 
appreciated  what  the  real  situation  was  and  had  been  outspoken  on 
the  subject  of  discrimination  and  taken  the  leadership,  I  think 
that  the  history  of  this  issue  might  have  been  very,  very  different. 
But  he  didn't  do  that,  and  then,  when  he  became  ill,  this  was  not 
one  of  the  major  issues  that  was  bothering  him  while  he  was  con 
valescing.   There  were  many  things  about  foreign  affairs  and  even 
other  domestic  problems  that  he  was  far  more  concerned  with  than 
this. 

He  never  did  support  these  four  proposals  until  the  very  last 
minute.   Then  there  was  an  official  statement  which,  I  think, 
Anderson  mentioned  in  his  book,  which  was  made  by  the  official 


419 


Olney:   White  House  spokesman  to  the  effect  that  all  four  of  those  proposi 
tions  were  administration  measures  and  had  administrative  backing. 
But  that  was  after  the  war  was  pretty  well  fought  in  the  Congress. 

Stein:   He  was  jumping  on  the  bandwagon? 

Olney:   Well,  I  don't  know  about  that,  but  that's  the  way  it  happened.   At 
the  time  I  felt  very  disillusioned.   I  had  felt  that  the  president, 
of  all  people,  of  all  Republicans  in  particular,  would  be  in  favor 
of  all  those  proposals.   I  didn't  understand  it  at  the  time  and 
felt  very  disillusioned  at  the  time  and  rather  let  down  on  it.   The 
only  thing  that  really  kept  us  going  was  Mr.  Brownell's  personal 
persistence  and  his  belief  that  it  was  politically  feasible  to  have 
a  decent  civil  rights  bill  and  his  conviction  that  we  ought  to  make 
the  effort  anyhow  because  it  was  the  right  thing  to  do.  Well,  when 
you  have  a  man  in  leadership  like  that,  why,  even  though  you  might 
be  somewhat  let  down,  you're  prepared  to  go  ahead  and  do  what  you 
can. 

Stein:  You  mentioned  in  one  of  your  letters  to  Harry  Kingman  that  you  were 
fearful  even  toward  the  end  that  there  might  be  a  filibuster  in  the 
Senate.  Do  you  remember  if  there  was  or  not? 

Olney:   No,  there  was  not.* 

Stein:   You  mentioned  earlier  that  you  had  quite  a  struggle  in  '56  getting 
any  mention  of  civil  rights  in  the  Republican  platform.** 

Olney:   Well,  we  did. 

The  Democratic  convention  had  already  been  held  and  they  had  an 
awful  lot  of  difficulty  with  their  civil  rights  plank  because  the 
Democratic  administration  had  taken  such  a  beating  with  their  efforts 


*The  question  of  whether  or  not  there  was  a  filibuster  and  the  role 
of  Lyndon  Johnson  are  the  subject  of  considerable  discussion  in 
interviews  conducted  by  Dori  Dressander  with  Mr.  Olney  and  with 
Herbert  Brownell.   Transcripts  of  these  interviews  will  be  depos 
ited  at  Notre  Dame  University  and  at  The  Bancroft  Library.   The 
reader  is  also  referred  to  relevant  portions  of  the  Congressional 
Record . 


**Dori  Dressander,  in  subsequent  interviews  with  Mr.  Olney,  points 
out  that  the  Republicans  included  a  strong  civil  rights  plank  in 
their  1952  platform. 


420 


Olney:    to  get  one  through  under  President  Truman  that  they  didn't  want  to 
have  a  plank  advocating  a  repetition  of  that  kind  of  thing.   So 
their  plank  was  very  disappointing;  it  was  very  weak. 

By  that  time,  there  were  a  number  of  important  Republican  politi 
cal  figures  like  Senator  Everett  Dirksen,  for  example  (I  remember 
him  in  particular)  who  had  really  seen  the  light  of  day  as  far  as 
public  sentiment  was  concerned.   He  had  experienced  the  big  shift 
in  public  opinion  himself,  at  the  polls.   Dirksen  had  had  to  run 
for  office  and  he  was  put  into  office  by  black  folks.   This  made 
him  a  real  convert  to  the  cause  of  civil  rights.   He  was  very 
insistent  that  we  must  have  a  good  plank  in  the  party  platform 
and  that  it  ought  to  be  a  better  plank  and  a  stronger  plank  than 
the  Democrats  had.   Senator  [Prescott]  Bush  from  Connecticut  felt 
the  same  way  about  it.   Those  two  were  on  the  committee  of  the 
Republican  party  that  was  supposed  to  draft  the  plank. 

I  was  over  at  the  convention  in  San  Francisco;  it  was  the  only 
convention  that  I'd  ever  attended.   I  was  assigned  to  work  with 
them  in  trying  to  draft  a  plank.  We  held  our  meetings  in  the  St. 
Francis  Hotel  and  we  had  a  good  many  drafts  that  we  thought  were 
quite  appropriate.  We  thought  they  were  far  better  than  the 
Democratic  plank.  We  thought  they  were  indications  of  the  kind  of 
action  that  could  and  should  be  taken  by  the  administration  if  it 
won  the  election  and  took  office. 

But  we  had  great  difficulty  in  getting  those  things  approved  in 
the  White  House,  great  difficulty.   Anderson  relates  in  his  book 
how,  after  many  phone  calls,  which,  of  course,  were  coming  into  the 
White  House  pretty  late — three  hours  later  at  night  as  compared 
with  our  time  out  here — we  got  word  that  the  president  was  going  to 
bed,  and  that  he  wasn't  going  to  consider  any  more  planks,  and  that 
if  the  Republicans  didn't  like  his  idea  of  what  the  plank  ought  to 
be,  they  could  go  and  get  a  new  candidate. 

Notwithstanding  that,  we  went  ahead  and  put  the  polishing  on  the 
best  reconciliation  we  could  make  of  our  own  ideas  and  the  positions 
that  we  had  gotten  from  the  White  House,  and  in  the  morning  we  had 
a  plank  which  was  acceptable  to  us.   It  wasn't  as  strong  as  we 
would  have  liked  to  have  seen,  but  it  was  better  than  the  Democratic 
plank  and  it  had  been  approved  by  the  White  House.   It  said,  "We 
support  the  enactment  of  the  civil  rights  program  already  presented 
by  the  president  to  the  Second  Session  of  the  Eighty-fourth  Congress. 
There  was  a  latent  vagueness  about  this.   Did  the  program  "presented 
by  the  president"  mean  just  the  commission  and  the  division?   Or  did 
it  mean  all  four  proposals?   Fortunately  the  vagueness  was  not 
detected  and  the  media  and  the  public  assumed  it  meant  support  for 
all  four  proposals. 


421 


Stein:   Did  you  participate  in  any  other  parts  of  the  convention? 
Olney:   No,  no.   I  just  sat  in  the  galleries  and  watched. 

Stein:   Do  you  know  what  role  Lyndon  Johnson  played  in  the  passage  of  the 
bill? 

Olney:   Just  from  off  the  top  of  my  head  I  can't  recall  what  part  Lyndon 
Johnson  played  in  steering  that  bill  through.   I  do  remember  that 
we  had  a  Democratic  Congress  and  I  do  know  that  the  passage  of  the 
bill  would  have  been  impossible  if  there  had  been  adamant  resistance 
on  the  part  of  either  Lyndon  Johnson  or  Speaker  Sam  Rayburn,  but 
there  was  not.   I  think  both  of  them  felt  that  some  such  bill  or 
bills  must  be  passed  for  the  sake  of  the  country.   But  I  think  they 
were  hesitant  in  being  in  the  forefront,  probably  because  of  the 
positions  they  were  in,  but  also  with  respect  to  their  own  home 
constituencies  and  the  general  feeling  there.   I  think  they  were 
relieved  that  it  was  a  Republican  bill  and  were  willing  to  support 
it  for  the  sake  of  the  country. 

Stein:   How  about  Senator  Knowland?   Do  you  know  what  role  he  played? 

Olney:   Yes.   I  do  recall  that  on  the  '57  bill,  after  all  four  proposals 
were  introduced,  he  put  up  a  very,  very  strong,  vigorous  fight  to 
get  all  four  of  those  proposals  enacted.   As  far  as  I  know,  he  did 
everything  in  his  power  to  try  to  get  the  full  program  enacted . 

There  were  compromises  made,  as  you  will  recall.   The  third 
proposal  was  not  included  in  the  statute  as  enacted.   It  was  a 
great  pity  that  it  wasn't,  in  my  judgment,  but  what  we  got  were 
the  other  three,  and  then  there  were  a  lot  of  new  provisions  in 
the  fourth  one  about  voting.   I  think  that  that's  where  they  have 
provisions  for  federal  registrars.   I  believe  that  came  in  by  way 
of  amendment  to  the  voting  rights  provision  in  the  '57  bill.   It 
had  not  been  in  the  original  draft  bill  and  was  a  very  great 
improvement.  Well,  I'm  hazy  about  this.   I  don't  believe  that  I 
have  this  accurately  enough  in  my  mind  to  try  to  relate  its  history. 


Voting  Rights 


Stein:    Speaking  about  voting,  could  you  tell  me  about  the  testimony  that 

you  gave  to  Senator  [Albert]  Gore's  committee  on  election  disturb 
ances? 

Olney:   Well,  let's  see  now.   Do  you  remember  the  date  of  that  statement? 


422 


Stein:  Yes,  it's  October  10,  1956,  so  it  would  have  been  before  the  elec 
tion.  It  was  a  statement  in  response  to  questions  by  members  of  a 
Senate  subcommittee  on  privileges  and  elections.* 

Olney:    I  only  recall  this  about  it.   The  Senate  subcommittee  of  which 
Senator  Gore  was  the  chairman  was  making  inquiry  into  alleged 
election  irregularities.   They  were  talking,  however,  about  irreg 
ularities  that  were  supposed  to  have  taken  place  in  Michigan,  I 
believe,  and  other  places,  and  they  were  primarily  concerned  with 
campaign  contributions,  as  I  recall.   At  any  rate,  they  were  paying 
no  attention  whatever  to  the  disenf ranchisement  of  voters,  although 
their  subcommittee  had  clear  jurisdiction  over  this. 

They  had  subpoenaed  me,  or  not  subpoenaed  me  but  asked  me  to 
appear  to  testify  about  these  other  matters,  the  details  of  which 
have  completely  gone  from  my  mind.   I  made  some  reference  to  these 
and  then  raised  the  question  as  to  whether  the  committee  wasn't 
going  to  inquire  into  these  other  matters.   I  believe  I  was  then 
asked  if  I  would  submit  a  statement  on  the  subject,  something  like 
that. 

Anyhow,  I  did  submit  that  statement,  and  I  must  have  appeared 
before  the  committee  twice,  at  least,  because  my  recollection  is 
that  I  read  that  statement;  I  didn't  just  file  it  as  an  exhibit. 
This  first  statement  disclosed  very  widespread  disenfranchisement 
of  black  voters  in  Louisiana  and  some  in  Mississippi. 

Later  on,  I  sent  a  letter  to,  I  believe,  the  chairman  of  every 
committee  in  the  Congress  that  might  have  jurisdiction  over  the 
subject,  and  gave  them  the  full  details  of  what  the  investigations 
had  shown  about  the  disenfranchisement  of  black  voters  in  these 
southern  states.   Disenfranchisement  was  very,  very  widespread. 

Nothing  was  done  about  it,  but  it  was  one  of  those  things  which 
eventually  registered  its  effect.   It  became  known  throughout  the 
rest  of  the  country  what  was  going  on.   It  had  its  effect  in  due 
course  when  the  Congress  considered  the  1957  bill.   I  have  no  doubt 
at  all  that  these  federal  registrars  who  were  provided  for  in  the 
1957  act  were  based  on  the  experience  that  was  shown  in  these  dis 
enfranchisement  matters  that  we  presented  to  the  Congress  way  back 
in  October,  ' 56. 


*Supplemental  Statement  by  Assistant  Attorney  General  Warren  Olney 
III  in  Response  to  Questions  by  Members  of  the  Senate  Subcommittee 
on  Privileges  and  Elections,  10/10/56.   On  deposit  in  The  Bancroft 
Library . 


423 


Stein: 


Olney : 


Stein: 


Olney: 


How  had  you  become  aware  in  the  first  place  of  the  disenfranchise- 
ment  that  had  gone  on  in  Louisiana  and  Mississippi? 

Well,  Mr.  Brownell,  as  I  have  said,  was  not  only  interested  in 
civil  rights,  but  it  was  his  personal  conviction  that  the  key  to 
the  matter  was  voting,  and  that  if  black  voters  could  be  given 
their  constitutional  rights  to  vote  in  elections,  a  great  deal  of 
the  difficulty  with  discrimination  would  disappear.   It  was  he, 
really,  who  was  responsible  for  the  voting  proposal  that  we  had. 
His  interest  in  that  was  greater  than  it  was  in  my  pet  proposal, 
which  was  to  use  the  injunctive  process. 

Because  of  his  interest  in  it,  we  had  investigated  through  the 
FBI  as  quietly  as  we  could  just  what  was  going  on.  We  had  heard 
about  the  White  Citizens  Councils.   We  had  gotten  complaints  from 
Clarence  Mitchell,  Thurgood  Marshall,  and  others  in  the  NAACP,  so 
we  conducted  an  investigation  to  find  out  what  the  facts  were.   And 
that's  why  we  had  the  information. 

Unfortunately,  those  facts  were  not  sufficient  to  indicate  the 
violation  of  any  federal  law.   There  wasn't  anything  that  we  could 
do  about  them  excepting  to  bring  them  to  the  attention  of  Congress. 


It  was  a  wonderful  example  of  why  legislation  was  needed, 
so  flagrant. 


It  was 


It  certainly  was,  yes. 
needed  it. 


And  for  once  we  had  the  information  when  we 


[a  short  break  for  tea] 

Stein:   You  mentioned  while  we  were  having  tea  that  Earl  Long  was  a  great 
help  to  you. 

Olney:   Well,  Earl  Long's  organization  had  relied  very  heavily  on  Negro 

voters,  and  so  he  was  not  at  all  in  favor  of  this  disenfranchise- 
ment  movement,  and  they  did  supply  us  with  information  about  it. 
I  don't  remember  how  much.   It  wasn't  openly  done,  as  I  remember, 
but  we  realized  that  we  did  have  considerable  political  support  in 
Louisiana  itself  against  this  disenf ranchisement. 

Stein:    I  have  in  my  notes  here  that  in  February  of  '57  you  wrote  a  letter 
to  the  one  of  the  subcommittees  in  the  House  of  Representatives 
chaired  by  Emmanuel  Celler.   Evidently  Attorney  General  Jack 


424 


Stein:   Gremillion  of  Louisiana  had  testified  to  the  committee  in  response 
to  your  statement,  trying  to  make  it  sound  as  though  there  wasn't 
anything  wrong  with  voter  registration  in  his  state  at  all. 

Olney:   Yes,  that  is  true.   He  gave  some  testimony,  I  believe,  before 

Congressman  Celler's  judiciary  committee,  minimizing  what  was  said 
in  our  statement  of  October,  '56  about  disenf ranchisement  in 
Louisiana.   So  I  wrote  the  committee  a  letter  giving  them  the  full 
details,  the  actual  facts  as  we  then  had  them,  which  were  greatly 
at  variance  with  what  was  said  by  Louisiana's  attorney  general. 
I  also  sent  a  copy  of  that  statement  to  him  so  that  he  could  answer 
it  if  he  wanted  to  do,  but  he  never  made  any  response. 

Stein:   Harry  Kingman  wrote  a  letter  to  William  Knowland  in  August  of  1957, 
giving  him  credit  for  helping  to  pass  the  '57  bill.   He  said  there 
were  also  a  couple  of  assists  from  Vice-President  Nixon.   I  wondered 
if  you  remembered  Nixon's  role  in  that. 

Olney:   No,  no,  I  don't.   I  don't  remember.   I  don't  even  remember  whether 
Nixon  was  presiding  as  president  of  the  Senate  during  those  debates 
or  not. 

Stein:   Harry  Kingman  also  mentioned  in  one  of  his  letters  to  you  that  he 

hoped  that  you  would  consider  the  post  of  assistant  attorney  general 
in  charge  of  civil  rights.   I  wondered  what  came  of  that. 

Olney:   Nothing.   I  wasn't  interested.   I  didn't  feel  very  well  qualified 
for  that  position,  and  nobody  ever  asked  me  to  undertake  it. 

That  was  '57,  and  I  was  getting  ready  to  leave  the  department. 
I  had  been  there  a  long  time.   I  have  explained  to  you  that  when  I 
went  to  the  department  I  didn't  expect  to  stay  very  long.   Actually, 
I  was  assistant  in  charge  of  the  criminal  division  longer  than  any 
one  else  had  ever  been.   But  by  1957  I  thought  I'd  been  there  long 
enough  and  I  wanted  to  leave. 

Furthermore,  I  became  quite  convinced  that  year  that  Mr.  Brownell 
was  going  to  leave,  and  I  had  no  desire  to  serve  under  anyone  else. 
I  wanted  to  stay  long  enough  so  that  he  wouldn't  have  to  find  some 
body  else  to  take  my  place,  and  then  resign  himself,  and  then  have 
a  new  attorney  general  who  might  not  desire  to  have  the  successor 
that  Mr.  Brownell  had  put  in.   So  I  left  in,  I  believe  it  was, 
October  of  '57. 

Our  intention  was  to  drive  our  car  home,  but  my  daughter-in-law, 
my  son's  young  wife,  was  about  to  have  a  baby.   They  were  up  at 
Amherst.   So  we  thought  we  better  go  see  our  new  grandchild  before 
going  West  and  drove  up  to  Massachusetts.  We  had  to  wait  around 
for  a  week  or  so  for  the  baby  to  show  up,  but  when  it  did  then  we 
took  off  for  the  West. 


425 


Olney:   But  we  didn't  want  to  go  directly  home;  we  wanted  to  go  via  northern 
Mexico.  We'd  gotten  as  far  as  Taos  and  Albuquerque  when  I  read  in 

the  paper  that  Mr.  Brownell  was  resigning  as  attorney  general  and 

the  department  was  going  to  have  a  dinner  party  for  him.  You  can 

see  that  my  timing  of  my  resignation  was  pretty  well  coordinated 

with  the  timing  of  his,  although  I  never  asked  him  when  he  was 
going  to  leave. 

Stein:   To  jump  ahead  a  little  bit,  you  found  yourself  back  in  Washington 
sometime  after  that. 

Olney:   Yes,  but  that  was  very  unexpected  for  me.   Before  leaving  Washington 
in  '57,  I  went  around  to  see  Chief  Justice  Earl  Warren  to  bid  him 
good-bye.  When  I  was  there  talking  with  him,  he  asked  me  if  I 
wouldn't  consider  becoming  director  of  the  Administrative  Office  of 
the  Courts.   I  told  him  that  I  really  didn't  think  that  that  was 
very  suitable  for  me,  that  he  knew  perfectly  well  I'd  had  no 
administrative  experience,  unless  you  call  the  experience  I'd  had 
in  the  Justice  Department  administrative,  and  I  knew  very  little 
about  the  judicial  system  and  its  problems.   "Well,"  he  said,  "I 
know  you.   I've  known  you  for  many  years  and  this  is  something  that 
I  think  you  would  enjoy.   And  it  is  something  that  you  could  do 
perfectly  well.   You're  fully  qualified  for  it,  and  I  wish  you  would 
consider  it." 

So  Elizabeth  and  I  had  to  bat  that  thing  around  all  the  way  to 
Mexico,  as  to  whether  we  were  really  going  to  stay  in  California  or 
consider  this  other  position.   The  appointment  is  actually  made  by 
the  Supreme  Court  as  a  body,  but  they  ordinarily  take  the  nomination 
of  the  chief  justice  for  the  reason  that  it  is  he  who  has  to  deal 
with  the  director  of  the  Administrative  Office.   The  other  members 
of  the  Court,  after  he's  once  in  office,  have  very  little  to  do  with 
him.   The  director  of  that  office  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  all 
the  federal  courts  excepting  the  Supreme  Court — nothing  to  do  with 
their  budget  or  personnel  or  administrative  matters. 

Stein:   So  did  you  return  to  Washington  immediately  to  take  up  that  job? 

Olney:   Well,  we  got  home  about  Thanksgiving,  I  believe,  and  went  back  to 
Washington  in  January.   We  weren't  home  very  long. 

Stein:   Just  long  enough  to  celebrate  the  holidays. 

Olney:   Yes,  but  we  had  sold  our  house  in  Washington  and  moved  everything 
out — put  our  furniture  in  storage,  fortunately;  we  hadn't  actually 
had  it  moved.   But  we  had  to  start  all  over  again. 

Stein:   Did  you  have  to  buy  another  house?  You'd  had  Joe  McCarthy's  old 
house. 


426 


Olney:   Well,  that's  the  one  we  bought  when  we  went  back  there  this  second 

time.  We  ended  up  in  McCarthy's  house — he  was  dead  and  gone  by  that 
time — which  was  very  convenient,  because  it  was  only  a  hundred  yards 
from  the  Supreme  Court  building . 

Stein:   Marvelous. 

Olney:   Oh,  yes,  I  should  say  so.   It  had  great  conveniences  for  me.   It 
wasn't  nearly  as  pleasant  for  Mrs.  Olney,  I'm  afraid,  because  of 
the  part  of  town  it's  in.   It  was  in  what  was  regarded  as  the  most 
dangerous  and  violent  precinct  in  the  city,  and  we  had  a  lot  of 
burglaries  and  robberies  and  things  of  that  kind  around,  but  we 
survived  it. 

Stein:   Were  you  ever  hit  yourself? 
Olney :   No . 

Stein:   So  then  you  were  out  of  the  Justice  Department,  really,  by  the  time 
the  civil  rights  division  got  itself  into  full  swing. 

Olney:   Yes,  yes,  I  was  indeed,  and  I  had  no  real  contacts  with  them.   I 

had  all  I  could  handle  with  my  new  work  without  worrying  about  the 
Justice  Department.   They  had  a  new  attorney  general,  Bill  Rogers, 
who  was  my  very  good  friend  indeed.   But  it  was  being  reorganized, 
as  it  naturally  would  be,  and  I  just  am  not  knowledgeable  about 
what  happened  down  there. 


Little  Rock 


Stein:   There  were  a  number  of  other  civil  rights  items  that  you  had  men 
tioned  when  we  first  talked,  besides  the  civil  rights  bill  and  the 
situation  in  Washington,  D.C.  You  mentioned  Brown  v.  Board  of 
Education. 

Olney:   Well,  yes,  I  did.   But  I  think  we've  covered  that  well  enough.   One 
thing  I  haven't  mentioned  was  the  Little  Rock  matter.   That  came  up 
while  I  was  still  in  the  department,  but,  I  think,  after  I  had  made 
public  my  intention  to  leave.   I  gave  an  account  of  what  had  taken 
place  from  the  department's  point  of  view  in  that  address  of  which 
you  have  a  copy.*  But  there  was  an  incident  in  connection  with  that 
that  is  not  mentioned  there,  and  it  was  very,  very  disturbing  to  me. 


*"A  Government  Lawyer  Looks  at  Little  Rock,"  address  by  Warren  Olney 
III  to  the  Conference  of  Barristers  of  the  State  Bar  of  California, 
10/3/57.  On  deposit  in  The  Bancroft  Library. 


427 


Olney:   You  may  remember  that  the  Little  Rock  affair  involved  Governor 
Orville  Faubus  calling  out  the  National  Guard  and  putting  them 
around  the  school.   Their  orders  were  to  keep  out  the  black  children 
on  the  excuse  that  there  would  be  violence  if  they  were  let  in. 

This  was  simply  intolerable,  and  there  was  a  great  deal  of  dis 
cussion  in  the  department  as  to  what  to  do.   It  was  our  very  strong 
view  that  what  should  be  done  was  not  to  bring  in  outside  federal 
troops,  but  that  the  president  ought  to  nationalize  the  National 
Guard,  which  he  had  the  authority  to  do,  which  makes  them  responsive 
to  his  orders,  and  that  he  ought  to  use  the  very  same  Guardsmen  who 
were  out  there  right  then,  only  change  their  orders:  that  the  black 
students  were  to  be  allowed  in  and  to  keep  order. 

But,  instead  of  doing  that,  they  brought  in  some  paratroopers  and 
took  the  National  Guardsmen  out.  We  thought  that  that  was  a  mistake. 
General  Swing  was  a  former  army  general  and  a  very  close  friend  of 
President  Eisenhower's  and  he  was  our  director  of  the  Bureau  of 
Immigration  and  Naturalization.   He  felt  very  strongly  that  the 
National  Guard  should  be  nationalized  just  as  I  have  outlined.   The 
reason  that  they  weren't  was  that  somebody  over  at  the  White  House 
didn't  think  they  would  carry  out  orders.   General  Swing  thought 
that  was  ridiculous;  he  was  sure  that  they  would  carry  out  orders. 
He  pointed  out  that  these  men  were  National  Guardsmen,  and  in  order 
to  qualify  for  all  the  benefits  that  Guardsmen  receive  from  the 
federal  government  after  their  years  of  service,  they  certainly 
weren't  going  to  throw  all  that  in  the  ashcan  by  failing  to  carry 
out  the  proper  orders  of  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

Another  thing  that  happened  at  that  time  that  was  disturbing  was 
President  Eisenhower's  treatment  of  Governor  Faubus.   The  president 
went  up  to  Rhode  Island,  I  believe.   I  don't  recall  exactly  where 
he'd  established  a  temporary  summer  White  House  for  vacation  in 
Rhode  Island.   This  serious  matter  in  Little  Rock  had  broken  out. 
Governor  Faubus,  for  all  legal  purposes,  was  in  the  position  of 
defying  the  courts.   He  was  evading  the  law,  he  was  violating  the 
constitutional  rights  of  a  lot  of  his  own  citizens,  and  had  misused, 
we  felt,  the  National  Guard  for  this  purpose.  Yet  the  president 
invited  Governor  Faubus  to.  come  up  to  Rhode  Island  and  confer  with 
him  on  this. 

We  thought  that  that  was  a  terrible  blunder,  that  it  dignified 
Governor  Faubus,  and  it  did  indeed.   He  went  up  there  and  treated 
with  the  president  as  though  he  were  a  foreign  potentate  negotiating 
with  an  equal.   It  gave  respectibility  to  his  position.  Mr. 
Brownell  was  invited  to  come  up  there  for  that  meeting  too,  but 
when  he  returned  we  learned  from  him  that  the  president  and  Faubus 
had  met  in  private  and  they  left  Mr.  Brownell  twirling  his  thumbs 
outside.   They  had  not  consulted  him,  not  taken  him  in  on  what  was 
going  on  at  all. 


428 


Olney:   This  just  outraged  me,  personally.   I  was  so  upset  about  it  that 

I  was  prepared  to  resign  right  then  and  there,  but  I  didn't.   I  was 
going  to  leave  anyway,  and  it  would  have  served  no  purpose  for  me 
to  do  anything,  and  it  would  have  complicated  Mr.  Brownell's  posi 
tion,  so  I  did  nothing  about  it.   But  I  felt  the  greatest  indigna 
tion  over  the  way  Mr.  Brownell  was  treated  at  that  meeting  between 
the  president  and  Faubus.   And  I  think  that  the  president  made  a 
great  mistake  in  not  recognizing  Faubus  for  what  he  was,  a  cheap 
demagogue  who  had  no  hesitancy  in  misusing  the  National  Guard  and 
misusing  his  authority  to  try  to  build  up  himself  as  a  representa 
tive  of  segregation. 

Stein:   That  sounds  like  an  example  of  the  president  trying  to  play  the 
role  of  great  conciliator  that  you  were  talking  about  before. 

Olney:   Well,  I  think  so,  but  it  was  misdirected.   I  think  it  was  a  failure 
to  appreciate  the  kind  of  a  worm  that  Governor  Faubus  was.   After 
this  meeting  public  statements  were  made  that  everything  was  going 
to  be  sweetness  and  light  down  in  Arkansas,  and,  of  course,  Governor 
Faubus  went  back  and  it  was  worse  than  ever,  as  we  might  have 
anticipated.   I  think  the  president  was  very  badly  advised  on  that. 
Anyway,  it  was  a  bad  decision.   I  don't  know  whose  it  was. 

Stein:   You  mentioned  to  me  a  while  ago  that  A.B.  Caldwell  had  gone  down  to 
Arkansas . 

Olney:   Yes,  he  did.   But  that  was  initially;  that  was  at  the  very  beginning, 
And  it  was  one  of  the  strange  things  that  happened.   He  went  down  to 
Little  Rock  at  Governor  Faubus 's  request.   Governor  Faubus  got  in 
touch  with  us  and  said  that  he  would  like  to  see  somebody  from  the 
department  because  there  might  be  trouble  down  there  in  Little  Rock 
if  the  school  board  went  ahead  to  try  to  implement  their  program. 

So  A.B.  went  down  there  to  see  him  and  talk  with  him  at  length. 
He  came  back  and  said  that  he  couldn't  understand  why  the  governor 
had  ever  sent  for  him  or  anybody  else,  that  there  were  no  signs  of 
trouble.   No  one  was  excited  or  concerned  about  it.   The  school 
board's  program  for  integration  was  gradual  indeed.   It  was  some 
thing  like  eight  to  ten  years  that  it  would  take  to  get  full  inte 
gration  in  the  schools  there,  and  no  one  was  anticipating  any 
problem.   And  the  governor  was  anything  but  specific  about  where 
the  trouble  might  arise.  We  just  didn't  know  what  to  make  of  it. 

He  did  ask  Caldwell  specifically,  "If  there  is  trouble  in  the 
school,  is  there  going  to  be  intervention  by  the  Department  of 
Justice?"  Well,  that's  the  kind  of  question  that  you  can't  answer 
unless  you  know  what  the  trouble  is  and  who's  making  the  trouble. 
Obviously  there  can't  be  any  intervention  by  the  Department  of 


429 


Olney:   Justice  unless  the  federal  law's  being  violated  in  some  way.   And 
the  governor  was  most  uninformative  as  to  what  ways  the  federal 
laws  might  be  violated.   But  that  was  at  the  beginning. 

Stein:   But  even  then  Caldwell  had  the  impression  that  Faubus  was  not  to 
be  trusted. 

Olney:   Well,  this  is  true.   A.B.  Caldwell  came  from  Arkansas.   I  believe 
his  father  was  the  president  of  the  University  of  Arkansas  at  one 
time.   I  know  he  was  on  the  faculty  there  anyway.   A.B.  had  been 
born  and  brought  up  there  and  he  knew  Arkansas  very  well.   He  knew 
what  Governor  Faubus  was.   He  wouldn't  trust  him  out  of  sight,  or 
even  in  sight,  on  anything. 

Stein:   You  also  mentioned  the  Autherine  Lucy  case  and  the  University  of 
Alabama. 

Olney:   Well,  there  are  these  cases,  but  those  were  cases  before  the  enact 
ment  of  the  civil  rights  law,  and  there  was  very  little  that  the 
federal  government  could  do  under  existing  statutes  at  that  time. 
There  were  a  whole  lot  of  incidents  like  that,  in  which  we  were 
prepared  to  act  if  we  had  any  statute  under  which  we  could  act,  but 
we  didn't.   And,  of  course,  our  liberals  were  very  full  of  criticism 
of  us  because  we  didn't  do  anything,  not  appreciating  the  fact  that 
there  wasn't  anything  that  we  had  any  legal  authority  to  do.   But 
that's  usual  in  situations  of  this  kind. 

Stein:   So  that  also  would  have  been  true  in  the  Emmett  Till  case? 

Olney:   Yes,  it  was.   The  Emmett  Till  case  was  an  out-and-out  murder,  but 
there  was  no  interstate  aspect  to  it;  there  was  no  violation  of 
federal  law  that  was  anywhere  involved.   It  was  thoroughly  investi 
gated  by  the  FBI  and  nothing  turned  up  that  would  give  us  any  foot 
hold  to  get  into  it. 

Stein:   In  a  case  like  that,  could  you  have  acted  after  the  '57  act  was 

passed?   Could  you  have  used  any  kind  of  injunctive  proceeding,  or 
would  it  have  been  too  late  by  that  time  since  the  murder  had 
already  occurred? 

Olney:   Well,  I  really  don't  know  whether  we  could  or  not,  because  I  never 
really  tried  to  enforce  the  1957  civil  rights  act.   I  was  out  of 
there  by  the  time  that  became  law.   I  never  had  any  experience  with 
its  practical  application.   But  I  doubt  that  that  statute  would 
have  made  any  difference  in  the  Emmett  Till  case.   There  just  wasn't 
any  federal  aspect  to  it. 

Stein:   Well,  were  there  any  other  civil  rights  matters  that  we  haven't 
discussed  that  ought  to  be? 


430 


Olney:   Not  that  I  can  recall.   Certainly  nothing  of  any  importance  that  I 
presently  remember. 


Kidnaping  Cases;  The  FBI  and  the  Justice  Department 


Stein:   Well,  then  let's  move  on  to  the  kidnaping  cases  and  the  question  of 
jurisdiction. 

Olney:   Well,  I  only  mentioned  that  to  you,  not  because  it's  a  matter  of  any 
great  importance,  but  you're  asking  me  about  my  experiences  in  the 
Justice  Department,  and  it's  a  good  example  of  how  bureaucrats  work 
against  one  another  and  have  to  work  against  one  another,  you  might 
say. 

The  FBI,  which  was,  of  course,  under  Mr.  Hoover  all  the  time  that 
I  was  in  the  department,  was  an  organization  for  which  I  had  the 
greatest  respect  for  its  accomplishments,  for  its  organization,  for 
its  discipline,  and  for  its  integrity.   But  it  had  grown  large  and 
become  a  big  bureau  and  it  had  certain  policies  that  it  followed 
that  seemed  to  have  as  their  objective  the  protection  of  the  FBI  as 
an  organization  without  regard  for  other  agencies .  We  were  equally 
concerned  with  criminal  cases  and  with  the  matters  that  the  Bureau 
had. 

Mr.  Hoover  used  to  say  repeatedly,  publicly  and  privately,  that 
the  FBI  was  an  investigative  agency  and  did  not  ever  try  to  evaluate 
cases,  that  it  was  their  function  to  gather  evidence  and  to  report 
it  to  the  appropriate  agency,  which  in  most  cases  was  the  criminal 
division  of  the  Department  of  Justice,  and  to  rely  on  them  and  their 
judgment  as  to  whether  there  was  a  sufficient  case  to  be  prosecuted 
or  not  and  what  the  charges  should  be  and  the  like.   This  is  true. 
This  is  indeed  the  function  on  the  criminal  division. 

But  on  some  things  the  Bureau  used  to  go  barging  ahead  on  its 
own  without  asking  for  any  evaluation  from  the  criminal  division 
and  then  sending  us  reports  and  wording  the  reports  in  such  a 
fashion  that  if  anything  went  wrong  with  what  had  happened,  the 
responsibility  could  be  laid  on  the  criminal  division  and  their 
failure  to  evaluate,  rather  than  on  the  FBI. 

Stein:   Wasn't  there  some  little  catch  phrase  that  they  used  at  the  end  of 
their  letters? 

Olney:   Yes.   They  would  send  us  these  reports  saying  that  in  the  absence 
of  a  specific  request  from  you,  no  further  investigation  of  this 
matter  will  be  made.   That  was  the  gist  of  it. 


431 


Olney:   Well,  you  can  see  that  if  no  further  investigation  was  made  and  no 

request  received  and  then  it  turned  out  that  it  was  a  federal  matter 
which  could  and  should  have  been  investigated,  why,  the  responsibil 
ity  for  not  doing  it  would  rest  on  the  criminal  division. 

Well,  it  took  me  a  good  many  years  before  I  became  enough  of  a 
bureaucrat  to  realize  what  was  being  done  to  us.   I  didn't  think 
this  was  fair  to  the  lawyers  in  the  criminal  division.   If  anything 
did  go  wrong  in  these  cases,  then  the  men  who  were  charged  with  the 
duty  of  reading  these  reports  and  making  an  evaluation  would  be  the 
ones  who  would  be  held  responsible.   I  thought  that  as  assistant  in 
charge  of  the  division,  I  ought  to  keep  them  from  that  kind  of 
criticism  when  it  was  unjustified. 

These  reports  were  usually  addressed  to  the  attorney  general  or 
the  deputy  attorney  general  with  a  carbon  copy  to  the  criminal  divi 
sion.   I  began  to  respond,  in  appropriate  cases,  by  giving  the  facts, 
stating  that  in  our  judgment  there  was  an  adequate  legal  basis  for 
the  Bureau  proceeding  with  their  investigation.   They  didn't  like 
it,  because  it  put  the  monkey  on  their  backs  when  I  did  that.   They 
used  to  get  so  put  out  by  this  that  Mr.  Hoover  took  this  up  with 
the  attorney  general  personally. 

As  you  can  see  from  that  file,  the  attorney  general  had  a  little 
difficulty  in  getting  it  straightened  out.   He  finally  suggested  to 
the  Bureau  that  they  not  put  that  snapper  on  the  end  of  these 
reports  because  it  was  being  taken  by  us  as  an  indication  that  we 
should  evaluate  the  matter.   On  the  other  hand,  he  also  suggested 
to  us  that  we  shouldn't  write  critical  or  offensive  memoranda  to 
any  other  agency  in  the  department. 

I  might  say  that  my  personal  relationships  with  Mr.  Hoover  were 
quite  different  from  the  experiences  that  other  assistants  in  charge 
of  the  criminal  division  seemed  to  have  had.   I  have  read  that  there 
were  some  of  those  assistants  that  Mr.  Hoover  wouldn't  even  speak 
to  and  were  never  received  in  his  office  or  anywhere  else.   Mr. 
Hoover  was  very  friendly  to  all  the  assistants  in  Mr.  Brownell's 
administration.   Most  of  them  he  would  call  by  their  first  names. 
But  although  I  saw  more  of  him  than  any  of  the  others,  he  and  I 
never  called  one  another  by  first  names  and  we  always  dealt  in  a 
more  or  less  formal  fashion,  the  reason  being  that  we  had  to  deal 
with  one  another  so  frequently. 

Now,  he  always  received  me  in  his  office  any  time  I  asked  to  see 
him.  When  I  first  went  there,  he  actually  inquired  whether  I 
wouldn't  prefer  to  have  him  come  to  my  office.   I  said,  "Well,  Mr. 
Hoover,  I  don't  think  that's  in  order.   You've  been  here  in  govern 
ment  far  longer  than  I  have.   I'll  come  up  and  see  you."  I  didn't 


432 


Olney:   realize  at  that  time  that  in  Washington  it  makes  a  great  difference 
as  to  who  goes  to  see  whom.   I'd  never  been  accustomed  to  doing 
business  in  that  way.   I'd  always  been  quite  prepared  to  go  to  see 
anybody  I  wanted  to  talk  to  just  because  I  wanted  to  talk  to  him. 
But  it  seemed  in  Washington  it  has  something  to  do  with  the  relation 
ship  as  to  who  goes  to  see  whom.   But,  anyway,  I  always  went  to  see 
Mr .  Hoover . 

Stein:   What  does  that  presumably  show? 

Olney:   Well,  it  showed  that  he  wasn't  working  for  me;  you  might  put  it  that 
way.   But  it  never  made  any  difference.   I  don't  think  it  made  any 
difference  to  him,  excepting  I  think  the  rest  of  the  Bureau  would 
have  thought  it  was  very  much  out  of  line  if  he  had  come  down  to 
see  me. 

But  at  the  outset  we  got  along  extremely  well.   He  was  very  help 
ful  to  me  in  investigating  the  corruption  in  the  Treasury  Department 
that  was  bothering  us.   But  there  were  limits  as  to  what  he  would  do, 
because  he  was  concerned  about  his  authority  to  investigate  Treasury 
agents.   This  I  could  understand.  We  did  have  some  early  disagree 
ments.   I  think  I  mentioned  the  one  about  the  automobile  cases, 
things  that  I  couldn't  understand  then,  and  don't  very  well  now, 
about  why  the  attorneys  general  could  have  let  that  condition  go  on. 

There  were  occasions  when  I  didn't  agree  with  some  of  the  things 
that  were  in  Bureau  reports  and  I  never  hesitated  to  talk  to  him 
about  them.  We  could  talk  perfectly  frankly  about  that  and  had  no 
difficulties.   Some  of  the  things  that  I  did  he  liked  very  much. 
When  that  would  happen  he  sometimes  would  send  a  note  of  commenda 
tion  to  the  attorney  general. 

He  had  certain  Christmas  lists  so  that  if  you  were  in  his  good 
graces  you  got  one  kind  of  card,  and  if  you  were  just  an  official 
that  he  had  to  recognize  you  got  another  and  so  on.   It  was  laughable 
around  the  department,  at  least  with  my  assistant  John  Airhart.  He 
used  to  joke  about  it  all  the  time  because  he  never  could  tell  what 
list  I  was  going  to  be  on.   First  I'd  be  on  one  and  then  on  another. 

The  director's  attitude  toward  me  was  always  reflected  in  the 
attitude  of  his  assistants  towards  others  in  the  division.   John 
claimed  he  could  always  tell  whether  I  was  in  or  out  with  the 
director  just  by  going  to  talk  with  anybody  in  the  Bureau  to  see 
what  sort  of  reception  he  got. 

Stein:   Can  you  remember  any  particular  instances  that  Hoover  really 
approved  of  what  you  had  done? 


433 


Olney:  Yes,  on  this  kidnaping  letter.  The  first  one  that  was  in  the  file 
that  I  showed  you  was  a  letter  that  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Richard  Hartley 
about  the  kidnaping  of  his  daughter  way  back  in  March  of  1954. 

This  was  an  awful  crime.   Mr.  Hartley  was,  I  believe,  on  the 
faculty  at  Wisconsin  State  College,  and  his  daughter  was  acting  as 
a  babysitter.   The  people  came  home  to  their  house  and  the  baby  was 
there,  but  Hartley's  daughter  was  missing.   There  was  blood  around 
the  place  and  one  shoe,  or  something  like  that.   It  was  evident 
that  somebody  had  broken  in,  and  whether  they  killed  her  in  the 
house  and  took  her  body  away  or  whether  they  kidnaped  her,  we  never 
knew.   But,  anyway,  she  was  gone.   Of  course,  the  uproar  was  ter 
rific.   The  Bureau  was  trying  to  help  the  local  authorities  as  best 
they  could,  but  it  was  not  a  federal  case  in  their  judgment;  there 
was  no  federal  jurisdiction. 

Mr.  Hartley  wrote  to — I  guess  he  wrote  to  me;  the  answer  indicates 
that.   I  think  he'd  written  to  the  White  House  first  and  they  direct 
ed  him  to  write  to  me.   So  I  wrote  him  a  letter  explaining  exactly 
what  the  role  of  the  FBI  was  in  cases  like  that.  Mr.  Hoover  thought 
that  letter  was  exactly  right,  that  that  was  precisely  the  position 
of  the  Bureau  and  just  what  should  have  been  said,  and  he  wrote  a 
letter  to  Mr.  Brownell  to  tell  him  so.   That  was  the  kind  of  thing 
he  would  have  liked  me  to  do  in  all  these  other  kidnaping  cases. 

But  the  circumstances  are  different  in  those  other  cases.   It 
isn't  that  there  was  any  difference  in  policy  on  our  part,  but  here 
we  thought  the  Bureau  was  thoroughly  justified  in  what  seemed  to  be 
a  hardboiled  decision  of  not  entering,  in  the  sense  of  taking  charge, 
as  against  the  local  authorities  in  a  disappearance.   The  girl  was 
unquestionably  murdered,  but  her  body  has  never  showed  up.   Chances 
are  that  she  was  murdered  right  there  in  the  house,  in  which  case 
there  never  would  be  any  federal  interstate  aspect  to  it. 

Well,  I  think  Mr.  Hoover  got  pretty  exasperated  with  me  before  I 
left,  because  there  was  an  increasing  number  of  instances  where  I 
was  trying  to  protect  the  lawyers  in  the  criminal  division  against 
being  saddled  with  responsibilities  that  were  really  the  Bureau's 
on  investigations  and  not  ours  on  evaluation.   But  whether  he  was 
irritated  or  not,  he  was  always  very  polite  and  reasonably  friendly, 
although,  as  I  say,  we  were  not  on  first-name  basis  as  he  was  with 
many  of  the  other  lawyers  that  were  in  the  Department  of  Justice. 

Stein:   Now,  I  think  you  said  earlier  that  one  of  the  things  that  you  felt, 
if  I  understood  you  correctly,  was  that  the  FBI  was  sort  of  picking 
and  choosing  which  cases  it  would  enter  even  when  it  had  the  juris 
diction  to  enter,  based  on  whether  they  thought  they  could  solve 
them,  to  keep  up  a  batting  average. 


434 


Olney:   Well,  that's  my  personal  conclusion  drawn  from  the  cases  they 

entered  and  those  that  they  didn't  enter.  I  could  never  see  any 
other  rationale  behind  it.  Sometimes  they  would  go  in  and  some 
times  they  wouldn't. 

The  Weinberger  case  is  an  example  where  they  held  off  just  as 
long  as  they  could  on  the  thing.   Then  when  they  went  in  they  had 
a  long  investigation,  but  they  made  it.   They  made  it.   And,  of 
course,  when  they  did,  they  were  very,  very  proud  of  themselves 
and  patted  themselves  on  the  back  regularly,  especially  in  public. 

Stein:   Now,  as  a  result  of  the  Weinberger  kidnap,  I  think  you  said  before, 
the  legislation  was  changed  so  that  the  presumption  of  interstate 
action  was  reduced  to  twenty-four  hours. 

Olney:   Yes.   But  even  there  they  wouldn't  always  go  in.   There  was  one  case 
that  I  mentioned,  very  similar  to  the  Weinberger  case,  which  they 
didn't  enter  at  all.   I  don't  remember  now  which  one  that  was. 

Stein:   It  was  another  baby  case.   Is  that  the  case  where  the  baby  was  taken 
out  of  the  carriage  at  the  supermarket? 

Olney:   Yes,  that  one.   I  think  I  have  it  here  [referring  to  files].   It  was 
the  case  of  Stephen  Damman.   The  little  boy  was  found  to  be  missing 
by  his  mother  after  she  had  finished  her  shopping  in  the  supermarket, 
and  he'd  disappeared  and  hadn't  been  seen  since.   Now,  he  was 
obviously  taken  by  somebody.   It  was  very  similar  to  the  Weinberger 
case,  but  the  Bureau  never  entered  that  at  all.   The  case  has  never 
been  solved. 

But  it's  not  on  the  list  of  the  Bureau's  unsolved  kidnapings 
because  they  never  put  it  on  their  books  as  a  kidnaping  case. 
When  you  get  that  concerned  with  keeping  records,  why,  it's  not 
healthy,  not  healthy  at  all.   I  don't  think  that  that's  an  adequate 
reason  for  failing  to  do  everything  possible  on  that  Damman  case. 

I'm  rather  reluctant  to  say  this.   But  I  think,  if  you  take  a 
look  at  these  cases,  that  another  aspect  that  enters  into  them  is 
that  if  the  victims  appear  to  be  very  well-to-do,  the  Bureau  seems 
to  get  into  the  case  a  lot  faster  than  when  they're  not.   I  don't 
know  if  that's  a  coincidence  or  not,  but  the  Damman  family  was 
certainly  not  well-to-do.   But  take  that  Greenlease  kidnaping;  the 
Bureau  was  into  that  instantly.   They  didn't  wait  for  anything  on 
that.   They  succeeded  in  solving  it,  and  the  man  and  the  woman  that 
did  the  kidnaping  and  killed  the  little  boy  were  convicted  and 
executed . 


435 


Olney:   But  we  had  very,  very  serious  difficulty  in  establishing  any  federal 
jurisdiction  in  that  case.   Initially  there  was  no  federal  jurisdic 
tion  because  they  had  not  gone  across  any  state  line;  there  was  no 
interstate  aspect  to  it.   My  recollection  was  that  these  two  had 
gone  from  Kansas  City,  Missouri  to  Kansas  City,  Kansas  after  the 
baby  had  been  murdered  and  while  they  were  still  trying  to  extort 
money.   They'd  sent  some  extortion  message  from  Kansas  into  Missouri 
and  this  was  the  only  thing  that  ever  got  that  case  into  the  federal 
court,  which  was  really  well  after  the  Bureau  was  in  that  case  up  to 
its  ears.   The  Greenlease  family  was  very  well-to-do. 

Stein:   What  about  the  De  Galindez  case? 

Olney:   Well,  the  De  Galindez  case  was  a  very  complicated  affair.   De 

Galindez  was  a  citizen  of  the  Dominican  Republic,  a  well-educated 
man,  politically  opposed  to  Trujillo.   He  was  a  refugee  from  the 
dictatorship,  on  the  faculty  at  NYU  [New  York  University] .   He  was 
teaching  there  to  maintain  himself,  and  he  was  also  writing  a  book 
about  Trujillo  and  the  numerous  crimes  he'd  committed.   The  book 
was  well  along  towards  completion,  and  it  was  quite  well  known  by 
Trujillo  agents  what  he  was  doing. 

He  disappeared  one  night  after  he  had  left  his  lecture  class  and 
apparently  was  on  his  way  home.   It  seemed  evident  that  he'd  been 
snatched  by  somebody,  and  it  seemed  to  be  pretty  plain  who  was  the 
one  that  had  an  interest  in  seeing  him  disappear. 

The  New  York  Police  Department  got  into  the  investigation  right 
away,  and  then  the  FBI  was  notified  about  it  but  did  not  enter  the 
case  as  a  federal  investigation.   De  Galindez 's  friends  and  others 
immediately  concluded  what  must  have  happened  to  him  and  made 
vociferous  demands  that  the  federal  government  make  a  thorough 
investigation  of  his  disappearance  and  whatnot,  and  wrote  many 
letters  and  petitions  and  so  forth  to  the  White  House  and  some 
to  the  Department  of  Justice  insisting  that  the  FBI  ought  to 
investigate  the  thing  thoroughly. 

Those  letters  were  sent  to  me  for  reply.   I  did  reply  that  the 
reason  that  the  Bureau  wasn't  in  it  was  that  there  were  no  federal 
aspects  to  the  case,  that  the  matter  was  being  investigated  by  the 
New  York  police,  and  the  Bureau  was  following  the  investigation 
closely  and  was  prepared  to  enter  it  just  as  soon  as  there  was 
sufficient  evidence  to  justify  a  federal  investigation.   That  was 
the  position  of  the  Bureau  and  I  think  it  is  to  this  day. 

I  don't  believe  they  ever  did  book  that  case  as  a  federal 
kidnaping,  although  the  facts  eventually  showed  without  a  doubt 
that  De  Galindez  was  snatched  by  agents  of  a  foreign  power  on  the 


436 


Olney:    streets  of  an  American  city  and  taken  out  of  the  country  to  be 

murdered.   De  Galindez  was  apparently  injected  with  some  kind  of 
medicine  that  made  him  unconscious.   They  wrapped  him  all  up  like 
a  sick  man.   They  had  rented  a  small  plane  and  pilot  out  at  a  small 
airfield  near  Linden,  New  Jersey,  and  they  stuffed  De  Galindez  on 
a  stretcher  into  an  ambulance  and  took  him  out  there  and  loaded  him 
into  this  plane  as  a  sick  man  to  be  taken  to  a  hospital  somewhere. 

The  pilot  of  that  plane  was  a  man  named  Murphy.  Murphy  flew  the 
plane  to  the  Dominican  Republic.   One  of  the  mysteries  of  the  case 
is  how  he  did  that  without  his  plane  ever  being  spotted,  because 
we  had  a  radar  screen  which  was  supposed  to  be  effective  twenty- 
four  hours  a  day,  yet  there's  no  record  of  the  radar  ever  having 
picked  him  up  on  that  flight. 

Well,  he  went  to  the  Dominican  Republic  and  De  Galindez  was  taken 
off  and  then  eventually  he  was  murdered.   I  don't  know  how  much  is 
known  about  it  now,  probably  a  good  deal  more  since  Trujillo  was 
himself  assassinated.   But  Murphy  came  back,  flew  back  in  his  plane, 
to  New  Jersey  and  once  again  went  through  the  radar  screen  without 
being  spotted. 

Meanwhile,  the  FBI  was  saying  in  the  papers  all  the  time  that 
they  were  not  investigating  the  kidnaping  of  De  Galindez.   Now, 
Murphy  was  supposed  to  be  very  well  paid.   He  only  got  about  half 
of  what  was  due  him.   He  also  had  his  personal  belongings  which 
were  in  the  Dominican  Republic  that  he  wanted  to  get.   He  apparently 
had  no  idea  of  what  he  was  involved  in.   Evidently  he  thought  this 
man  was  indeed  sick,  because  after  a  week  or  so  he  finally  decided 
to  go  back  to  the  Dominican  Republic  and  collect  the  rest  of  his 
money  and  his  personal  belongings.  He  very  foolishly  did  that, 
with  the  result  that  once  there,  they  never  let  him  out.   He 
apparently  was  murdered,  too. 

It  took  a  long  time  for  all  this  to  come  out,  but  it  did  come 
out.   Life  magazine  published  several  lengthy  articles  about  it  in 
which  they  had  most  of  the  details,  I  think,  correctly.   Now,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  United  States  and  investigative  jurisdic 
tion,  it  involved  violations  of  our  laws.   The  laws  were  violated 
all  over  the  place. 

In  the  first  place  it  was  a  federal  kidnaping,  but  more  important 
than  that,  these  were  activities  of  unregistered  foreign  agents, 
right  here,  snatching  people  off  our  streets.   And  if  there  was 
anything  that  was  in  FBI  jurisdiction,  that  was.   I  can't  recall 
anything  that  the  Russians  ever  did  that  was  as  aggravated  a  viola 
tion  of  our  internal  security  laws  as  this  thing  was.  Yet  no  real 
thorough  investigation  by  any  federal  agency  was  ever  made  of  this 
matter. 


437 


Stein:   Do  you  have  any  of  your  own  theories  about  why  the  FBI  didn't  enter, 
aside  from  their  public  pronouncements? 

Olney:   Well,  no,  I  have  not.   I  have  no  idea  why  they  didn't  excepting  that 
it  was  one  of  those  cases  where  they  didn't  want  to  enter  it  as  a 
kidnaping  case  because  they  weren't  sure  they  could  solve  it.   By 
the  time  that  the  truth  began  coming  out  and  they  realized  what  was 
involved,  it  was  so  awfully  late.   This  was  a  couple  of  years  later, 
and  Murphy  was  dead. 

My  own  feeling  is  that  if  the  FBI  had  entered  the  case  when  they 
should  have,  Murphy,  when  he  was  back  in  the  United  States,  would 
have  gone  to  the  Bureau  and  told  them  what  happened  before  he  ever 
returned  to  the  Dominican  Republic.   I  don't  think  that  he  would 
have  ever  gone  back  there  and  probably  never  would  have  been  killed. 
I  think  he  would  have  told  his  story  to  the  Bureau,  and  they  would 
have  been  well  on  the  way  to  a  solution  in  the  sense  of  knowing  what 
the  facts  were,  and  it  would  have  been  a  real  international  incident 
at  the  time. 

But  I  don't  know  why  they  dragged  their  feet  in  this  fashion. 
It's  the  kind  of  thing  that  can  happen  in  a  big  bureau.   I  don't 
know  whether  anyone  made  a  decision  about  it  or  whether  it  was  just 
reluctance  all  the  way  along  on  everybody's  part. 

Stein:    I  wondered  if  there  was  anything  political  about  it,  the  fact  that 
it  occurred  in  the  Dominican  Republic. 

Olney:    I  don't  believe  so.   Oh,  no.   No,  I'm  sure  that  no  influence  of 
Trujillo's  had  anything  to  do  with  this  at  all.   No.   But  with  a 
very  large  bureau  and  the  policies  that  they  had,  the  director  in 
charge,  who  had  almost  uncontrolled  authority  over  the  agents,  one 
can  see  that  the  agents  at  a  lower  level  would  be  reluctant  to 
docket  this  thing  as  an  FBI  case  and  start  in  the  formal  investiga 
tion  on  the  thing,  not  knowing  where  it  would  lead  or  whether  they 
could  ever  make  anything  out  of  it.   The  disposition  might  very 
well  be:  well,  let  somebody  else  do  it.   Let  them  do  it  up  topside, 
and  it  was  just  never  done. 

But  I  think  the  Bureau  dropped  the  ball  on  that  one.   They  should 
have  gone  into  the  case  at  the  very  outset,  and  they  could  have. 
The  criminal  division  told  them  in  writing  that  they  had  the  legal 
authority  to  do  so. 

Stein:   I  gather  there's  someone  now  who's  trying  to  put  together  the  story 
of  that  case. 


438 


Olney:   Well,  there  is.   Alan  Fitzgibbon  is  writing  a  book,  apparently  about 
the  De  Galindez  and  Murphy  cases.   He's  written  to  ask  me  for  infor 
mation  about  them.   I've  given  him  as  much  information  as  I  could, 
but  it's  pretty  little. 


Shipping  Cases 

Stein:   Let's  move  on  to  the  story  of  the  oil  tankers  and  Aristotle  Onassis. 

Olney:   Well,  these  shipping  cases  came  up  in  1954  and  '55.   The  Merchant 

Ship  Sales  Act  of  1948  is  concerned  with  prohibiting  the  acquisition 
and  control  of  American  flag  vessels  by  noncitizens.   Over  quite  a 
few  years  there  were  many  vessels  that  had  been  seized  for  forfei 
ture  for  violation  of  these  statutes.   Now,  those  were  civil  proceed 
ings.   During  the  fiscal  year  1955  proceedings  were  brought  against 
seven  more  vessels  owned  by  corporations  that  were  claimed  to  be 
controlled  by  aliens,  bringing  a  total  of  vessels  seized  for  forfei 
ture  to  forty-four.  These  were  all  in  the  civil  division. 

[refers  to  Annual  Report  of  the  Attorney  General,  fiscal  1955] 
In  addition  to  the  forty-four  forfeiture  actions,  on  November  22, 
1954  a  related  civil  suit  for  $20  million  was  instituted  in  the 
southern  district  of  New  York  against  A.S.  Onassis  and  affiliated 
individuals  and  corporations,  based  on  the  allegedly  illegal 
acquisition  from  the  Maritime  Administration  of  sixteen  vessels 
through  fraudulent  misrepresentation  of  citizenship.   The  circum 
stances  of  those  alleged  misrepresentations  of  citizenship  were 
also  criminal  offenses,  so  there  were  indictments  that  were  brought 
in  the  District  of  Columbia  and  in  the  southern  district  of  New 
York  for  the  filing  of  false  statements  with  the  Maritime  Administra 
tion  and  conspiracy  to  file  such  false  statements  against  these 
people,  the  owners  of  the  ships,  who  were  also  involved  in  the  civil 
proceedings,  including  A.S.  Onassis. 

Now,  in  the  grand  jury  proceedings  in  the  district  court,  many  of 
the  persons  concerned  with  those  transactions  were  subpoenaed  and 
testified  as  witnesses  about  what  had  taken  place,  the  owners  of  the 
ships  and  the  people  who  had  signed  the  affadavits  and  so  forth. 
Well,  the  false  statement  cases  involved  violations  of  18  USC  1001. 
That's  the  general  false  statement  statute,  which  has  a  felony 
penalty  attached  to  it,  so  it's  a  reasonably  serious  offense.   So 
we  had,  in  the  department,  these  criminal  charges  against  Onassis 
and  others,  and  we  also  had  this  seizure  of  the  actual  ships,  plus 
the  sixteen  ships  that  he  had,  forty-four  all  told,  and  a  $20  million 
suit  for  penalties  against  Onassis  and  his  associates,  also,  in  the 
civil  division. 


439 


Olney:   Warren  Burger  was  the  assistant  in  charge  of  the  civil  division. 

We  had  a  consultation  about  this  situation.   Ordinarily  the  criminal 
aspects  of  a  transaction  are  regarded  as  far  more  serious  than  the 
civil.   But  when  you're  talking  about  forfeiture  of  forty-four  ships 
and  a  $20  million  penalty  suit,  that's  a  good  deal  more  important, 
probably,  and  a  good  deal  more  drastic  as  far  as  the  defenses  are 
concerned,  than  prosecution  and  conviction  under  the  false  statement 
statute. 

One  can  only  anticipate  what  a  judge  would  do  if  there  were  a 
conviction  under  those  circumstances,  under  the  false  statement 
statute.   A  jail  sentence,  in  my  judgment,  would  be  very  unlikely, 
especially  against  foreigners,  who  would  justifiably  take  the  posi 
tion  that  they  had  no  intention  of  violating  the  American  laws;  they 
were  merely  relying  on  the  advice  they  got  from  counsel.   They  had 
been  informed  that  what  they  were  doing  was  legal  enough,  but 
apparently  they  had  gotten  bad  advice.   Those  would  be  circumstances 
of  mitigation  that  any  judge  would  have  to  consider.   A  jail  sentence, 
in  my  judgment,  would  be  very  unlikely  under  those  circumstances. 

Well,  these  cases  had  gotten  a  lot  of  publicity.   The  newspaper 
columnists  kept  pounding  away  at  me  because  we  weren't  bringing 
these  criminal  suits  to  trial.   They  were  just  kind  of  coasting 
along  while  the  civil  division  was  working  on  the  civil  aspects  of 
this. 

There  were  all  sorts  of  accusations  made.   One  of  them  involved 
Mr.  Brownell.   It  was  said  that  one  of  these  groups — it  wasn't 
Onassis's  group,  but  it  may  have  been  Niarchos's;  I  can't  recall. 
But,  anyway,  one  of  them  was  supposed  to  have  consulted  with  the 
New  York  law  firm  of  Lord,  Day  and  Lord  about  these  transactions 
when  they  were  first  undertaken,  and  had  been  advised  that  they  were 
not  in  violation  of  the  law. 

That  was  the  firm  in  which  Mr.  Brownell  had  been  a  partner.   Some 
of  the  allegations  in  the  press  were  that  Mr .  Brownell  had  handled 
the  whole  thing.   I  don't  know  anything  about  those  details.   I 
doubt  that  he  had  handled  any  of  them  at  all.   But  when  these  things 
came  up,  what  he  said  to  me  was,  "I  know  they  are  making  these 
claims,  that  Lord,  Day  and  Lord  and  even  I  had  something  to  do  with 
it,  advising  these  people.   This  is  not  to  make  any  difference  to 
what  you  do.   You  just  go  right  ahead  with  everything  and  give  it 
the  works,  just  as  you  would  any  other  case.   And  don't  be  concerned 
that  it's  going  to  be  a  matter  of  any  embarrassment  to  me,  or  to 
Lord,  Day  and  Lord.   I  don't  know  whether  they  got  any  advice  from 
us,  or  what  the  advice  was,  but  we'll  take  the  consequences,  what 
ever  it  may  have  been.   But  the  thing  for  you  to  do  is  just  treat  it 
like  any  other  case.   Go  ahead  with  it."   So  we  did. 


440 


Olney:   But  in  working  the  thing  out  with  Warren  Burger,  it  was  plain  enough 
that  it  was  the  civil  actions  that  were  important,  and  it  took  time 
to  work  this  out.   I  might  say  that  the  civil  litigation  was  settled 
by  a  compromise. 

Well,  during  the  pendency  of  this  litigation  with  Onassis,  his 
lawyers,  of  course,  were  in  and  out  of  the  civil  division  and  the 
criminal  division  as  well.  When  they  didn't  get  very  far,  Onassis 
tried  to  come  in  and  see  first  Warren  Burger  and  then  me,  personally. 
He  said  he  wanted  to  see  us,  didn't  want  to  be  bothered  with  lawyers 
around.   He  just  wanted  to  talk  to  us  man  to  man  across  the  desk. 
We  both  knew  what  he  had  in  mind.  We  wouldn't  let  him  in. 

Stein:   Well,  that  would  be  a  highly  questionable  practice,  to  have  people 
you  were  litigating  against  trotting  in  and  out  of  your  office. 

Olney:   Well,  I  think  that  in  countries  where  he'd  been  accustomed  to  doing 
business,  that  was  the  way  they  put  in  the  fix.  We  could  see  this 
one  coming  and  we  wouldn't  let  him  in  the  office.  He  got  very 
offended.  He  thought  that  we  took  this  attitude  because  he  was  a 
Greek,  or  because  we  had  some  other  reason  for  disliking  him.   But 
we  never  allowed  him  in  the  place. 

We  eventually  did  go  ahead  with  the  criminal  case,  and  then  we 
had  the  unique  experience  of  having  our  indictments  dismissed  by 
the  court  on  the  ground  that  the  defendants  had  acquired  immunity 
by  testifying  before  the  grand  jury.   These  proceedings  were  under 
the  Merchant  Ship  Sales  Act  of  1948,  and  that  had  a  special  provision 
in  the  statute  for  criminal  prosecution.   There  was  a  little  sneaker 
in  there  that  witnesses  who  testified  before  the  grand  jury  on  these 
transactions  thereby  acquired  immunity  from  prosecution.   So,  we 
didn't  get  very  far  with  our  criminal  cases  in  the  end  anyhow. 

But  in  the  meantime,  the  civil  actions  were  settled  for  astro 
nomical  amounts  of  cash  to  the  government.   It  made  it  perfectly 
plain  that  justice  was  done  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they'd  gotten 
immunity  in  the  criminal  cases  without  the  government's  being  aware 
of  it. 

Stein:    It  sounds  like  the  result  of  the  Tony  Cornero  case,  although  in  this 
case  you  got  much  more  money. 

Olney:   Yes.   Now,  is  there  something  else  you  were  going  to  ask  me? 

Stein:   I  remember  that  in  Drew  Pearson's  Diaries  he  mentions  this  case. 

He  mentions  the  rumor,  although  he  makes  it  sound  as  though  it  was 
true,  that  Onassis  had  retained  Brownell  as  a  legal  advisor. 


441 


Olney:   Well,  I  can't  remember  if  it  was  Drew  Pearson  or  one  of  the  other 
columnists  who  used  to  print  that.   I  guess  it  was  Pearson.  Well, 
anyway,  the  case  went  through  regular  channels  and  was  handled  in 
a  regular  manner. 

Stein:   Was  that  little  snapper  in  the  Merchant  Marine  Sales  Act  in  there 
to  encourage  people  to  testify  before  a  grand  jury?   It's  an  odd 
sort  of  provision. 

Olney:   There  are  quite  a  number  of  federal  statutes  that  have  such  a 

provision  in  them.   I  think  that  in  this  case  it  is  in  there  to 
make  it  possible  for  the  government  to  call  people  before  the 
grand  juries  and  get  the  facts.   The  reason  behind  it  is  that  in 
that  way  they  can  get  the  evidence  that  they  need  for  the  forfeiture 
of  the  ships  and  the  penalty  suits,  which,  obviously,  under  that 
statute  are  far  more  important  in  getting  observance  of  the  act  than 
the  criminal  penalties. 


The  Prosecution  of  Artie  Samish 


Stein:   The  other  case  I  would  like  to  ask  about  is  Artie  Samish. 

Olney:   Yes.  My  connection  with  the  federal  income  tax  case  against  Artie 
Samish  was  simply  this: 

By  way  of  background,  when  I  was  counsel  for  the  crime  commission 
here,  we  had  had  occasion  to  investigate  Artie  Samish 's  activities 
very  thoroughly.  We  had  a  great  deal  of  information  about  various 
associates  of  his  and  people  to  whom  he  had  given  large  sums.  We 
had  a  lot  of  information  about  his  finances,  and  eventually  the 
Internal  Revenue  Service  came  around  to  see  us.   Because  they  were 
making  an  investigation  of  Samish  for  income  tax  evasion,  we  opened 
our  records  to  them.  Well,  in  due  course  the  crime  commission  work 
was  closed  out  and  I  went  to  Washington  and  became  the  assistant 
attorney  general  in  charge  of  the  criminal  division.   Brian  Holland, 
who  came  from  Boston,  was  in  charge  of  the  tax  division,  and  we 
became  very  good  friends . 

I  think  I've  mentioned  the  fact  that  Herbert  Brownell  used  to 
have  his  assistants  in  for  lunch  very  frequently.   One  time  Brian 
Holland  came  in  at  lunch  and  told  me  that  he  had  just  been  reading 
a  file  sent  over  by  the  Treasury  Department  for  prosecution.   They 
were  up  against  the  statute  of  limitations;  it  was  due  to  run  out 
in  about  a  week  or  ten  days — it  was  a  very  short  time.  He  said 


442 


Olney:    the  case  came  from  California  and  involved  a  semi-racketeer  out 

there  and  he  wondered  if  I'd  ever  heard  of  him.  He  said  his  name 
was  Artie  Samish.  I  told  him,  of  course,  that  I  had  indeed  heard 
of  him  and  knew  a  lot  about  him. 

Well,  he  began  to  give  me  a  rundown  of  what  he  had  seen  in  the 
file,  and  everything  that  he  told  me  was  familiar.  His  problem  was 
to  try  to  evaluate  the  case  as  to  whether  it  ought  to  be  presented 
to  a  grand  jury  at  all,  whether  it  was  a  tryable  case  or  not,  and 
then  to  get  it  presented  within  the  time  limit  by  somebody  who 
could  examine  the  witnesses  and  knew  enough  about  the  case  to  do  it . 
I  suggested  that  I  go  up  with  him  after  lunch  and  take  a  look  at  the 
file,  which  I  did.   I  found  that  virtually  all  the  transactions  were 
ones  where  the  Internal  Revenue  Service  had  got  the  basic  information 
from  us.   Most  of  the  witnesses  I  had  talked  to  during  the  crime  com 
mission  investigations,  and  I  knew  what  their  stories  were.   The 
Bureau  had,  of  course,  a  great  deal  more  information  than  we  had 
had,  but  the  basic  key  witnesses  I'd  talked  to. 

Well,  we  had  a  brand  new  U.S.  Attorney  in  San  Francisco,  Lloyd 
Burke,  and  we  knew  that  he  had  no  particular  background  on  Samish 
and  would  have  trouble,  as  anyone  would,  to  try  to  get  this  thing 
ready.  We  didn't  think  that  he  could  do  it  within  the  time.   The 
tax  division  concluded  that  it  was  clearly  a  tryable  case  and  ought 
to  be  presented  and  tried.   So  with  the  attorney  general's  permis 
sion,  I  agreed  to  come  out  to  San  Francisco  and  present  the  case  to 
the  grand  jury  myself  with  Lloyd  Burke  helping  in  order  to  beat  that 
statute  of  limitations. 

I  did  that.   The  witnesses  were  the  same  people,  pretty  much, 
that  we  had  interviewed — or  some  of  them  we  had  interviewed;  others 
had  been  interviewed  by  a  crime  commission  investigator.  We  got  the 
indictment  in  time  to  beat  the  statute  of  limitations.   I  went  back 
to  Washington,  and  Lloyd  Burke  went  ahead  and  prepared  the  case. 
It  was  tried  by  the  U.S.  Attorney  in  the  office  in  the  regular 
fashion.   I  had  nothing  more  to  do  with  the  trial  of  the  case  or 
anything  else  other  than  that. 

Well,  I  know  that  Artie  Samish  in  his  book*  thinks  that  this  was 
all  prearranged  and  was  kind  of  a  conspiracy  to  get  him  in  some  way. 
And,  I  must  say,  I  can  hardly  blame  him  for  it,  because  there's  so 
much  coincidence  involved.   I  think  the  coincidence  would  be  a  little 


*Arthur  H.  Samish  and  Bob  Thomas,  The  Secret  Boss  of  California 
(New  York,  1971) . 


443 


Olney:   hard  for  him  to  accept.   And  yet  that  is  the  fact:  it  was  pure 
coincidence  that  I'd  had  this  background  and  that  the  matter 
happened  to  be  called  to  my  attention  by  Brian  Holland  at  this 
time. 

Stein:    I  can  see  him  thinking  that  every  time  he  turned  around,  there 
you  were,  holding  a  club  over  his  head.   [laughter] 


Life  in  Washington,  D.C. 


Stein:   Well,  you  also,  I  think,  had  some  stories  about  what  it  was  like 
living  in  Washington,  like  your  first  visit  to  the  White  House. 

Olney:    [laughter]   Oh,  well.   We  were  as  green  as  could  be.   I  might  say 
that  my  father  and  mother  had  been  to  the  White  House  during  the 
Hoover  administration — in  fact,  they  were  overnight  guests  there 
with  the  Hoovers — and  my  mother  had  quite  a  little  experience  with 
social  protocol  around  the  White  House  during  Hoover's  time.   So 
she  gave  us  some  good  advice  about  what  we  should  do,  and  one  of 
the  things  that  she  told  my  wife  was  that  it  was  customary  for  the 
wife  of  a  presidential  appointee  to  call  at  the  White  House  and 
leave  her  card . 

Well,  the  Hollands  had  had  some  experience  in  Washington,  too. 
Years  before  they  had  been  there;  I  guess  that  was  during  the 
Coolidge  or  Hoover  administration,  and  Trudy  Holland  recalled  that 
this  experience  with  calling  cards  was  customary  too.   So  the  two 
ladies,  Mrs.  Holland  and  my  wife,  Mrs.  Olney,  both  together  drove 
up  to  the  White  House  and  left  their  cards  in  this  old  way.   It 
wasn't  till  a  long  time  later  that  we  discovered  that  this  hadn't 
been  done  for  years  and  years  and  years.   [laughter]   Well,  we 
were  doing  our  best,  anyway. 

Stein:   Your  advice  was  just  a  little  outdated. 

Olney:   Yes.   Eventually  we  were  invited  to  the  judiciary  dinner  at  the 
White  House.   This  was  supposed  to  be  a  revived  tradition.   I 
don't  think  they  had  done  it  during  World  War  II,  and  I  don't 
believe  that  President  Truman  did  it  during  the  Korean  War 
either.   But  it  was  revived  during  the  Eisenhower  administration. 

We  received  invitations,  but  we  supposed  we  had  to  drive  our 
own  car,  or  if  we  drove  our  own  car,  we  thought  we'd  have  to 
park  it  on  the  street  somewhere.  We  just  couldn't  picture 
ourselves,  in  formal  clothes,  trying  to  find  a  parking  place 


444  - 


Olney:   against  the  curb  and  walking  into  the  White  House.   So  I  borrowed 
one  of  the  department  cars  and  got  one  of  the  drivers  to  take  on 
the  job,  for  which  I  paid  him,  of  course,  of  driving  us  as  a 
chauffeur. 

So  we  arrived  in  a  chauffeured  car  at  the  proper  entrance  and 
went  in  shaking  in  our  boots.   No  sooner  had  we  got  in  than  we  were 
greeted  with  an  escort  marine  officer  detailed  for  the  purpose. 
From  then  on  we  had  not  a  single  uneasy  moment. 

This  protocol  is  easy  to  ridicule  and  has  its  amusing  aspects. 
But  it  is  a  godsend  to  anybody  on  an  occasion  like  this,  because 
you  quickly  find  out  that  you're  not  going  to  be  caught  short  or 
taken  by  surprise  by  anything.   Here's  a  man  who  tells  you  very 
politely  and  discreetly  exactly  what  to  do  and  what's  to  be  expected 
and  the  rest.   It  makes  you  very  comfortable  in  no  time. 

Well,  we  had  the  usual  reception.   The  president  and  Mamie  were 
there  to  receive  us  all  and  we  shook  hands  all  round  and  went  in 
for  dinner  and  sat  down  to  a  big  U-shaped  table.   There  were  a  great 
many  people  there.   There  were  some  navy  people  besides  the  judges. 

I  should  tell  you  one  thing  about  the  judges.   There  were  enough 
people  there  so  that  they  couldn't  all  go  in  the  same  door;  I  mean 
enter  the  White  House  by  the  same  entrance.   There  are  four  different 
entrances  to  that  place,  and  each  one  has  a  very  adequate  parking 
facility.   Each  is  an  equally  nice  place  to  enter  the  building.   In 
sending  out  the  invitations,  they  had  included  instructions  as  to 
which  door  the  invitee  was  to  go  in. 

Well,  the  Supreme  Court  and  the  court  of  appeals  were  to  go  in 
one  door.   Then  it  turned  out  that  the  district  judges  were  to  go  in 
a  different  door.  When  the  district  judges  found  this  out  they  were 
very  upset  and  their  feelings  were  outraged,  because  they  felt  they 
were  being  asked  to  go  into  an  undignified  door,  as  against  the 
court  of  appeals  judges,  and  the  result  was  that  they  agreed  to 
boycott  the  affair.   And  they  did.   None  of  the  district  judges 
showed  up  for  no  other  reason  than  they  thought  they  were  invited 
to  enter  through  the  wrong  door. 

That's  a  typical  judicial  reaction.   I  found  that  out  when  I 
became  director  of  the  Administrative  Office  of  the  Courts.   I  wasn't 
so  surprised  then  when  they  acted  this  way.   Actually,  this  was  the 
first  experience  I'd  had  with  this  sort  of  thing.   So  they  filled  it 
up  with  a  few  navy  people. 

Anyhow,  when  we  were  at  dinner,  I  sat  next  to  Mrs.  Rankin — went 
in  with  her — Lee  Rankin' s  wife  on  one  side  and  then  the  wife  of  the 
chief  judge  of  the  District  of  Columbia  court  of  appeals  on  the 


445 


Olney:   other.  We  all  noticed  that  the  knives  and  forks  and  spoons  and  all 

were  gold.   They  appeared  to  be  solid  gold  and  they  were.  We  learned 
that  they  had  been  purchased  in  Paris  by  James  Monroe  when  he  was 
ambassador  there.   He  had  brought  them  back  to  this  country  and  had 
given  them  to  the  White  House,  but  had  never  used  them  because  he 
was  afraid  that  it  smacked  too  much  of  royalty  to  use  gold  utensils. 
They  told  us  that  they  had  never  been  used  before.   Now,  I  don't 
know  how  accurate  that  is,  because  during  the  Kennedy  administration 
they  used  them  and  they  told  the  same  story.   [laughter]   So  I  really 
don't  know  about  that. 

Stein:   Well,  it's  a  good  conversation  piece  anyway. 

Olney:   Well,  then  I  admired  the  china  very  much.   I  thought  the  plates  were 
most  handsome.   I  wondered  what  kind  of  china  they  were  and  where 
they  had  come  from.   And  so,  when  nobody  was  looking,  I  thought, 
(except  my  dinner  partner)  I  managed  to  flip  one  of  them  over  and 
looked  at  the  back.   Here  it  said  on  the  back,  The  White  House,  and 
the  thing  that  came  into  my  mind  was  that  that  must  be  the  store 
that  they  came  from.   And  I  thought  the  only  White  House  I'd  ever 
heard  of  was  the  one  in  San  Francisco  that  Raphael  Weil  owns,  and 
so  I  said  to  my  dinner  partner,  "I  think  it's  amazing  that  this 
china  would  have  come  all  the  way  from  San  Francisco."  She  said, 
"What?"   I  said,  "I  think  that's  the  name  of  the  store."   [laughter] 
Well,  I  pretty  near  broke  her  to  pieces  with  my  provincialism.   But, 
anyway,  that's  what  I  thought  of  it. 

When  the  time  came  to  leave,  we  all  went  to  the  cloak  rooms  where 
our  wraps  were,  and  our  drivers,  those  who  had  them,  were  notified 
to  come  and  get  us,  and  the  cars  were  driving  up  and  someone  was 
announcing  whose  car  was  waiting  so  they  could  get  in.   Elizabeth 
and  I  were  getting  our  coats  when  they  announced  that  General 
Olney 's  car  was  there. 

I  didn't  know  that  there  was  a  General  Olney  around  Washington 
and  I  was  very  interested  to  see  him,  so  we  looked  all  over  the 
place.   Then  the  fellow  announced  again,  "General  Olney 's  car  is 
waiting."  I  looked  out  and  I  could  see  it  was  my  car.   So  we  went 
out  and  got  into  the  car,  realizing  that  they  had  been  calling  us. 
But  that  was  the  first  time  that  I  had  been  addressed  as  "General." 
I  hadn't  realized  that  that  was  a  part  of  at  least  old-time  protocol 
in  Washington.   An  assistant  is  addressed  by  the  title  of  his 
superior,  and  all  we  assistants  were  entitled  to  be  called  "General." 

The  only  other  time  that  I  can  remember  that  happening  was  [with] 
this  man  Caldwell  that  I  think  I  spoke  to  you  about,  who  originally 
went  into  the  department  under  President  Cleveland.  When  he  came  in 
to  see  me,  he  addressed  me  as  "General."  I  found  out  that  years 


446 


Olney:   before  that  was  the  title  that  was  in  use.   I  might  say  that  Brian 
Holland  and  I  have  always  called  one  another  "General"  ever  since 
[laughter],  because  nobody  else  will  anymore. 

Stein:   Could  you  tell  that  story  about  Caldwell  again?  That  was  another 
one  that  we  didn't  get  on  tape. 

Olney:   Well,  when  I  arrived  at  my  office  for  the  first  time,  I  found 

hanging  over  the  fireplace — this  was  a  grand  office,  indeed,  with 
a  fireplace  that  worked — a  portrait  of  Richard  Olney,  who  had  been 
attorney  general  under  Cleveland,  and  he  later  was  Cleveland's 
secretary  of  state,  I  think,  in  the  second  Cleveland  administration. 
Apparently  somebody  had  him  hung  there  thinking  he  was  a  relative 
of  mine  and  this  was  a  compliment  to  me.   I  might  say  Mr.  Brownell 
found  one  of  his  uncles  hanging  in  his  office  that  he  had  never 
heard  of  but  found  that  there  was  a  family  relationship  that  someone 
had  dug  out.   [laughter] 

Stein:   There  must  have  been  someone  who  had  a  full-time  job  of  decorating 
the  offices  with  people's  relatives. 

Olney:   Well,  I  knew  that  this  was  supposed  to  be  a  thoughtful  gesture,  so 

I  left  him  there  for  a  considerable  time.   I  didn't  think  I  ought  to 
take  him  down  right  away. 

He  was  still  hanging  there  and  it  was  still  early  in  my  exper 
ience  when  my  secretary  told  me  that  Mr.  Caldwell,  a  lawyer  in  the 
office,  would  like  very  much  to  come  in  and  see  me  to  simply  pay  his 
respects. 

I  found  then  that  we  had  two  Caldwells  in  the  division,  A.B.,  who 
was  the  chief  of  the  section  on  civil  rights,  and  this  other  Caldwell. 
Marty  Bailey,  my  secretary,  said  that  he  had  been  in  the  department 
a  very  long  time.   In  fact,  he  had  been  in  the  criminal  division 
longer  than  anyone  else.   And  while  he  had  long  since  reached 
retirement  age,  he  still  had  an  office  and  a  desk  and  he  did  a  little 
work  from  time  to  time.   He  was  a  bachelor;  that  was  all  he  had  to 
do.   So  he'd  been  there  and  he  wanted  to  come  in  and  see  me,  and,  of 
course,  I  made  arrangements  for  him  to  come  in. 

Well,  he  arrived  in  his  usual  garb,  which  was  the  old-fashioned 
dress.   He  had  striped  trousers  and  a  Prince  Albert  coat  and  a  bat- 
wing  collar  and  a  tie,  just  the  kind  of  getup  that  you  would  see  in 
the  1890s,  I  would  suppose.   [laughter]   He  greeted  me  in  a  most 
polite  way.  He  was  manners  itself.   He  said  that  he  had  come  in  to 
see  me  because  I  was  the  chief  of  the  division,  but  also  because  he 
was  very  interested  in  seeing  another  Olney  in  the  Department  of 
Justice.   He  had  served  under  one  before. 


447 


Olney: 


Stein: 


Olney: 


Stein: 


Olney: 


I  asked  him,  "Well,  who  was  that?"  He  said,  "Well,  I  served  under 
Richard  Olney,  whose  picture  is  up  there  on  the  wall."  My  mouth 
dropped  open  and  I  said,  "Mr.  Caldwell,  Richard  Olney  was  Cleveland's 
attorney  general.   Did  you  serve  under  him?"  He  said,  "Yes,  indeed, 
I  did.   I  was  appointed  in  the  department  by  Richard  Olney  and  I've 
been  here  ever  since.   My  first  job  was  carrying  messages." 

I  said,  "It  must  have  been  very  different  around  here  then."  He 
said,  "Yes,  it  was.  We  were  all  in  what's  now  the  Executive  Office 
Building,  the  old  building  next  to  the  White  House.   That  included 
the  departments  of  war,  navy,  state,  and  the  attorney  general,  all 
in  the  one  building.   The  attorney  general  had  an  office  at  one  end 
of  a  corridor,  and  the  lawyers  had  offices  along  the  corridor." 

I  asked  him  about  his  duties  and  he  said,  "Carrying  messages,  but 
one  of  my  duties  was  to  answer  the  telephone.  Mr.  Olney  didn't 
believe  in  the  telephone.   He  thought  it  was  an  abomination  and  he 
wouldn't  have  one  in  the  place,  certainly  not  one  in  his  office. 
But  the  president  thought  that  the  cabinet  members,  at  least,  should 
have  telephones  so  he  could  talk  to  them  without  having  to  send  for 
them  every  time  he  wanted  to  speak  to  them.   So  one  had  been 
installed  for  the  attorney  general,  but  he  had  insisted  that  it  be 
at  the  opposite  end  of  the  corridor,  so  it  wasn't  anywhere  around 
him.  My  job  was  to  answer  that  telephone.   Sometimes  it  would  be 
the  president  wanting  to  speak  to  the  attorney  general,  so  I  would 
have  to  walk  the  length  of  the  corridor  and  inform  Mr.  Olney  that 
the  president  wanted  to  speak  to  him,  and  he  had  to  walk  the  full 
length  of  the  corridor  and  have  his  conversation  with  President 
Cleveland." 

With  all  that  corridor  walking  he  might  just  as  well  have  gone  over 
to  the  White  House. 

I  should  say.  Well,  this  man  was,  I'm  sure,  a  gold  mine  of  informa 
tion  and  it's  a  great  shame  that  he  wasn't  taped  for  his  recollec 
tions.   I'm  sure  that  he  would  have  been  delightful. 

He'd  sat  there  and  watched  the  changes  in  the  Justice  Department. 
That's  really  incredible.   He  stayed  on  at  the  department? 

Oh,  yes.   He  continued  on  there  until  he  died.   He  died  while  I  was 
still  assistant;  I  don't  remember  just  when.   But  an  old  man  like 
that  would  have  died  a  lot  faster  if  they'd  thrown  him  out  of  the 
department.  We  had  room  enough  for  him. 


Stein: 


Whatever  happened  to  Richard  Olney 's  portrait? 
there  for  the  duration? 


Did  you  leave  it 


448 


Olney:   Oh,  no.   I  really  didn't  care  for  it  as  a  work  of  art,  and  I'm  not 
too  fond  of  the  subject.   He  was  a  pretty  rough  old  fellow.   So,  in 
due  course,  I  got  a  picture  of  my  own.   It's  that  Keith  that's  in 
the  living  room.   I  replaced  the  portrait  with  this  landscape. 
Richard  was  returned  to  the  gallery. 

The  Department  of  Justice  has  a  portrait  of  every  attorney 
general,  I  think,  without  exception.   It's  possible  there  might  be 
one  that  they  don't  have,  but  I  believe  they  have  them  all  from  the 
beginning.   They  hang  most  of  them  in  the  corridor  on  the  seventh 
floor  where  the  attorney  general's  office  is,  and  mostly  in  chrono 
logical  order.   It's  really  quite  interesting  to  go  along  there  and 
look  at  them.   Then  they  bring  them  down  to  date.   The  last  one  that 
was  hanging  there  when  we  arrived  was  Attorney  General  [Francis] 
Biddle's,  and  that  had  been  painted  by  his  brother.   It  was  the 
worst  looking  thing,  just  perfectly  awful.   [laughter] 

Then  there  were  a  number  of  others  that  were  in  the  attorney 
general's  office  itself.   There  were  three  of  them  there.   The  main 
room  of  the  attorney  general's  office  has  got  beautiful  paneling, 
just  gorgeous  paneling.   There  were  three  former  attorneys  general 
who  had  their  portraits  hanging  on  those  panels.   Attorney  General 
McGranery  was  one  of  them — I  guess  they  were  older  than  that — I 
guess  Biddle  must  have  had  one  there.   They'd  been  hanging  there 
long  enough  so  that  the  paneling  had  gotten  discolored. 

Mr.  Brownell  didn't  want  them  there,  but  he  knew  that  if  he  took 
them  down  it  would  be  in  every  newspaper  in  the  country  and  it  would 
be  claimed  that  it  was  showing  ill  will  and  not  respect  for  the 
dead,  exactly,  but  a  lack  of  respect  for  his  predecessors.   So  he  . 
endured  them  for  quite  a  period  until  they  found  that  the  panels 
were  not  only  discolored  but  in  some  danger  of  cracking.   So  then 
they  had  a  very  valid  reason  for  removing  them  and  refinishing  the 
panels  and  they  did  not  put  any  more  portraits  up  there  at  all. 

Stein:   How  did  your  wife  get  on  in  Washington? 

Olney:   Very  well.   This  was  in  large  part  due  to  Adele  Rogers,  wife  of  the 
deputy  attorney  general.   Adele  took  all  the  ladies  in  tow  and  she 
made  sure  that  they  all  got  acquainted  and  they  all  did.   And  they 
liked  one  another.   The  ladies  used  to  do  many  things  together.   It 
made  a  very  pleasant  experience  for  them  all. 

Our  first  house  was  out  in  the  District  off  MacArthur  Boulevard 
and  nearly  out  to  the  District  boundaries.   It  was  a  small  house 
with  a  garden  around  it.   Elizabeth  has  always  enjoyed  gardening 
very  much.   The  house  had  plenty  of  space  because  we  expected  our 
son  would  come  back  for  his  last  year  in  high  school.   He  finished 


449 


Olney:   up  his  three  years  at  Berkeley  High  and  did  come  back.  We  thought 
that  he  would  want  to  bounce  his  basketball  and  have  his  dog  and 
things  like  that  that  he'd  been  accustomed  to  doing.   So  we  felt 
we  needed  that  kind  of  a  house.   Besides,  that's  the  only  sort  of 
house  we'd  ever  lived  in. 

Well,  he  did  come,  but  he  didn't  bring  the  dog.   And  he  had  long 
since  given  up  bouncing  his  basketball  around,  and  we  didn't  really 
need  that  kind  of  a  place.   It  was  pretty  far  out.   I  had  to  drive 
in  to  work  every  day  and  that  took  about  twenty  minutes  of  traffic 
driving.   And  traffic  back  in  Washington  is  as  bad  as  it  is  anywhere, 
I  guess.   But  it  was  a  pleasant  neighborhood,  and  Elizabeth  developed 
friends  out  there  in  the  neighborhood  who  were  pleasant  for  her.   In 
that  respect  it  was  much  more  agreeable  out  there  for  her  than  it 
was  down  there  on  Third  Street,  when  we  moved  back  later  and  lived 
downtown  so  close  to  the  capitol. 

Stein:    Is  there  anything  more  you  want  to  add  about  living  in  Washington? 

Olney:   No,  I  don't  think  so,  excepting  to  say  that  we  found  it  more  agree 
able  than  we  had  expected.  Both  of  us  had  visited  Washington  in 
summer  heat  and  in  winter  cold,  staying  in  hotels,  and  we  thought 
it  was  really  a  ghastly  place.   But  we  discovered  when  we  had  our 
own  place  to  live  that,  in  fact,  the  climate  was  very,  very  good  a 
great  deal  of  the  time. 

The  spring  and  fall  in  Washington  are  just  lovely.   Beautiful 
periods.   It's  very  different  from  how  it  is  in  the  West,  but  it 
certainly  has  its  charm  and  beauty.   The  winters  and  the  summers 
when  you're  living  there  all  the  time  aren't  too  bad.   The  snow 
doesn't  last  forever,  and  when  the  snow's  fresh,  when  it's  white, 
it  can  be  very  beautiful  too.   It's  just  the  slushy  melting  that  is 
objectionable.   The  summer  heat  can  be  pretty  bad.   But  now  they 
have  air  conditioning  in  the  buildings. 

- 

Our  first  house  was  not,  and  the  second  one,  the  one  the 
McCarthys  had,  was  entirely  electric.   It  had  a  heat  pump  in  it 
that  was  supposed  to  heat  it  in  winter  and  cool  it  in  summer. 
This  was  a  General  Electric  heat  pump  and  it  was  the  first  one 
that  had  been  installed  in  Washington  as  sort  of  an  experiment. 
Unfortunately,  we  didn't  investigate  that  thing  carefully  enough 
before  we  bought  the  house,  because  the  miserable  brute  never  did 
work. 


It  was  a  great  big  monster  of  a  machine,  way  down  in  the  base 
ment.  When  we  would  turn  it  on  it  would  vibrate  with  such  strength 
that  Elizabeth,  sitting  in  the  dining  room  right  over  the  thing, 
would  vibrate  just  like  one  of  these  massage  chairs.   [laughter] 
It  would  just  make  the  whole  room  shake,  but  particularly  her  chair. 


450 


Olney:   That  was  bad  enough,  but  the  thing  would  neither  cool  nor  heat.  We 
did  go  through  one  summer  in  that  row  house  without  any  air  condi 
tioning  at  all,  and  it  was  brutal.  My  poor  daughter-in-law  was 
there,  and  she  used  to  bring  a  blanket  down  and  sleep  on  the  floor 
in  the  living  room. 

Well,  we  eventually  had  to  replace  it.  We  found  that  we  could 
not  replace  it  with  a  gas  furnace,  because  there  was  no  gas  line  in 
that  house.   And  we  couldn't  replace  it  with  an  oil  furnace,  because 
there  was  no  place  for  oil  storage.   So  we  had  to  replace  it  with 
another  heat  pump.   But  by  that  time  they  had  really  got  those 
things  down  to  a  pretty  good  deal.   This  one  was  suspended  from  the 
ceiling  on  springs  and  it  did  not  vibrate,  didn't  make  a  noise,  and 
it  worked . 

Stein:   Well,  that's  saying  something  for  it. 

Olney:   Yes.   But  to  get  the  old  one  out  was  quite  a  job.   They  had  to  cut 
it  up  in  pieces.   It  seems  that  they  had  installed  it  before  they 
laid  the  floors  in  the  house,  so  that  it  was  impossible  to  get  it 
out  of  the  basement  in  one  piece. 

We  also  went  through  a  winter  without  any  adequate  heat,  and  our 
water  pipes  froze  in  the  kitchen.  Elizabeth  had  to  buy  an  electric 
fan  to  put  on  the  water  pipes  under  the  sink  to  make  the  sink  work, 
but  fortunately  they  didn't  break. 

At  that  house  we  used  to  have  the  judges  over  rather  regularly. 
The  Judicial  Conference  of  the  United  States  held  semi-annual  meet 
ings,  and  this  meant  all  the  chief  judges  of  the  circuit  courts  of 
appeal,  plus  a  district  judge  for  each  of  the  circuits  who  was 
elected  by  the  others,  would  meet  in  the  Supreme  Court  building, 
presided  over  by  the  chief  justice,  twice  a  year. 

They  were  always  interested  in  meeting  the  justices  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  and  likewise  the  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court  were  interested 
in  meeting  with  the  members  of  the  Conference.  Our  house  was  so 
close  that  we  decided  that  after  the  Conference  we  would  invite  them 
over  to  have  a  cocktail,  and  then  invite  the  Supreme  Court  justices 
over,  too. 

We  did  that  for  quite  a  few  years.  We  didn't  invite  anybody 
excepting  the  members  of  the  Conference  and  the  Supreme  Court.  We 
did  invite  attorneys  general  when  they  were  new,  and  I  guess  we 
invited  deputies  once  or  twice  because  they  used  to  come  to  the 
Conference  fairly  often.  Well,  these  were  pleasant  parties,  and 
we  had  a  good  time  with  the  judges,  and  they  liked  it  because 
there  were  no  newspaper  reporters,  there  were  no  outsiders,  or  any 
thing  of  that  kind.   But  we  had  some  mighty  amusing  experiences  with 
them. 


451 


Olney:   One  time  when  they  came  the  sewer  pipe  got  stopped  up.  We  had  to 
phone  for  the  Roto  Rooter  people  and  they  came  up  with  all  their 
equipment  and  proceeded  to  clean  out  this  sewer.  Well,  this  was 
the  finest  entertainment  I  think  that  the  judges  had  had  in  years. 
They  were  all  out  there  watching  this,  giving  advice  [laughter] 
on  how  this  was  to  be  done. 

We  had  another  amusing  experience  with  Judge  Ryan.  He  was  a 
member  of  the  Conference;  he  was  on  the  district  court  in  New  York. 
He  came  there  with  Mrs.  Ryan  one  night  for  this  party,  and  he  had  a 
brand  new  Borsolino  hat  that  he'd  bought  in  Rome.   It  was  a  lovely 
soft  hat,  too,  a  very  expensive  one.   Nobody  there  but  judges.   But 
when  he  came  to  go,  the  Borsolino  wasn't  there.   Some  old  rag  of  a 
hat  was  there  in  its  place. 

Well,  we  thought,  of  course,  that  somebody  had  taken  it  by 
accident  and  it  would  show  up  in  due  course.   But,  you  know,  we 
never  did  hear  about  it  at  all.  That  hat  just  absolutely  disap 
peared.   At  first  it  wasn't  a  matter  of  a  joke,  as  far  as  Judge 
Ryan  was  concerned,  because  he  really  wanted  that  hat  and  he 
couldn't  replace  it  very  well.  We  never  knew  what  happened  to  it. 
But  one  of  the  judges  got  an  awfully  good  hat.  Well,  I  want  to 
tell  you  that  I  was  very  careful  never  to  get  a  Borsolino. 


452 


XIV  DIRECTOR,  ADMINISTRATIVE  OFFICE  OF  THE  COURTS 
[Interview  15:  September  12,  1977] 


Staff 


Stein:   Let's  start  at  the  beginning  with  your  assuming  the  office  of 

director  of  the  Administrative  Office  of  the  Courts.   I  think  that 
we  already  have  the  story  on  tape  of  the  chief  justice  persuading 
you  to  stay  on. 

Olney:   Well,  I  really  don't  recall.   There  wasn't  much  story  about  it.   I 
had  not  discussed  the  administrative  problems  in  the  courts  with 
the  chief  justice  when  I  was  in  the  Department  of  Justice  and  he 
didn't  mention  them  to  me,  particularly,  until  he  knew  that  I  was 
resigning  from  the  Department  of  Justice  and  had  sold  my  house  and 
was  ready  to  go  back  to  California.   Then  when  I  went  to  tell  him 
good-bye  he  asked  me  if  I  wouldn't  give  consideration  to  becoming 
the  director  of  the  office.  This  was  a  big  surprise  to  me.   I  told 
him  I  felt  that  I  was  not  an  administrator.   I  had  had,  as  he  knew, 
no  real  administrative  experience  unless  you  wanted  to  count  that 
as  assistant  attorney  general,  which  is  more  administrative  than  it 
is  legal,  as  a  matter  of  fact. 

But  he  told  me  that  it  wasn't  just  a  housekeeping  operation; 
that  the  Judicial  Conference  and  the  Administrative  Office  together 
were  very  concerned  with  improving  the  machinery  for  the  administra 
tion  of  justice  and  that  it  was  that  aspect  of  the  work  that  he  was 
sure  would  interest  me  and  where  he  thought  I  could  contribute  some 
thing.   So  I  told  him  I'd  think  it  over,  which  we  did,  Elizabeth  and 
I,  for  some  months.   Then  I  finally  decided  that  I  would  take  it. 

When  I  went  back  there  and  returned  to  Washington  to  take  up  my 
work,  he  was  very,  very  helpful  and  hospitable  to  me.   Elizabeth 
had  to  stay  behind  in  California  and  get  our  house  ready  to  leave. 


453 


Olney:   Earl  met  me  at  the  plane  and  took  me  to  his  apartment  and  I  lived 

in  his  apartment  there  with  him  for  some  weeks.   Then  when  Elizabeth 
came  we  didn't  have  any  place  to  stay,  so  we  moved  in  with  the 
[Warren]  Burgers.   They  had  a  stable  on  their  property  with  an 
apartment  up  above  it  and  we  stayed  in  that  and  life  was  fine, 
[laughter]   It's  curious  that  I  would  have  stayed  with  the  chief 
justice  and  also  with  his  successor. 

The  staff  that  I  found  there  in  the  Administrative  Office  was, 
by  and  large,  excellent.   The  acting  director  was  what's-his-name 
[pauses  to  recollect  name] — William  something.   [looks  up  name  in 
annual  report  of  Administrative  Office  of  the  Courts]  William 
Ellis. 

Stein:   So  William  Ellis  was  the  acting  director? 

Olney:   Yes.  He  had  been  in  the  General  Accounting  Office  and  had  been 
asked  to  be  acting  director  by  the  chief  justice  until  he  could 
get  a  permanent  appointment.   The  division  of  procedural  studies 
and  statistics  was  headed  by  Will  Shafroth,  who  had  been  in  the 
Administrative  Office  since  its  founding  in  1939,  a  very  able  man, 
indeed,  who  later  became  deputy  director. 

Each  of  the  divisions  of  the  office — there  were  bankruptcy 
and  probation  and  statistics — was  headed  by  an  experienced  and 
capable  man  and  I  was  well  satisfied  with  the  staff. 

Stein:   Business  administration  was  one  of  the  other  divisions,  I  believe. 

Olney:   Yes.  Wilson  F.  Collier  headed  that.   They  did  the  budget  work. 

But  there  were  changes  made.   Collier,  for  example,  had  been  there 
since  '39  and  had  hit  retirement  age,  and  in  the  course  of  time  I 
replaced  them.  Will  Shafroth  became  deputy  director.   Business 
administration — Collier  left  and  went  to  Texas,  and  John  Airhart, 
who  had  been  my  administrative  man  in  the  Department  of  Justice, 
came  over  and  headed  that  work.   Then  there  were  other  changes, 
too,  as  retirements  came  along.   But  they  were  filled  by  promotions 
from  within. 

Stein:   Was  Ronald  Beattie  brought  in  then  to  be  staff  in  the  statistical 
division? 

Olney:   Ronald  Beattie  came  to  be  chief  of  the  division  of  procedural 
studies  and  statistics  at  the  time  Will  Shafroth  became  deputy 
director.   Beattie 's  background  was  very  unusual.   In  fact,  at 
that  time  he  came  there,  he,  together  with  Thorston  Seline,  was 
regarded  as  a  leading  authority  in  the  country  on  methods  of 
judicial  statistics,  court  statistics.   He  had  worked  originally 


454 


Olney:   with  the  Census  Bureau,  and  then  when  the  Administrative  Office 
was  created  they  borrowed  some  people  from  the  Census  Bureau  to 
help  them  set  up  their  statistical  system,  and  Ronald  was  one. 
He  then  became  a  member  of  the  Administrative  Office  staff. 

But  after  some  years  there  he  returned  to  California  and  became 
chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Criminal  Statistics  for  the  State  of  Cali 
fornia  where  he  made  a  national  reputation.  He  ended  up  with  what 
was  undoubtedly  the  best  set  of  criminal  statistics  for  any  state 
in  the  union. 

He  returned  to  the  Administrative  Office  because  I  asked  him  to 
take  this  on.  He  knew  what  it  was;  he  knew  what  the  challenge  was. 
We  discussed  what  the  possibilities  might  be,  so  he  was  willing  to 
do  it. 

A  more  able  and  more  dedicated  man  I  never  had  work  for  me. 
It's  always  been  a  source  of  very  great  regret  to  me  that  I  was 
never  able  to  get  him  the  assistance  that  he  needed  and  had  to 
have  to  make  his  work  truly  effective.   The  personnel  for  his 
division  was  so  skimpy  that  they  had  to  all  be  engaged  in  the 
mechanical  and  housekeeping  part  of  handling  the  records  and 
getting  them  on  tape  and  subject  to  printing,  and  they  were  quite 
unable  to  put  in  the  many  hours  that  you  have  to  put  in  in  studying 
statistics  to  develop  their  meaning.   Although  the  office  had  all 
the  information,  all  the  statistical  information,  there  was  nobody 
who  was  doing  the  brain  work  on  it  that  is  essential  if  you're 
going  to  use  it  for  any  kind  of  research  purposes. 

Beattie  was  very  patient  with  me.   He  understood  fully  the 
reasons  why  we  were  not  getting  the  money,  but  I  never  succeeded 
in  taking  full  advantage  of  his  capabilities,  and  in  the  end  he 
felt  that  he  had  done  as  much  as  he  could  there  in  the  Administra 
tive  Office  under  the  circumstances,  so  he  went  back  once  more  to 
California  and  ended  his  career  there. 

Stein:   I  don't  know  if  any  of  the  other  staff  people  deserve  mention. 
The  chief  of  bankruptcy,  at  least  in  1959,  was  Edwin  L.  Covey? 

Olnwy:   Yes,  and  he  was  outstanding  in  that  field.   He  had  been  chief  of 
the  division,  I  think,  from  the  beginning  in  '39;  spent  his  whole 
life  there.   He  was  very  well  known  among  the  bankruptcy  bar  and 
referees  all  over  the  country. 

Stein:   Louis  J.  Sharp  was  the  chief  of  probation? 

Olney:   Yes.   He  also  had  a  fine  reputation  in  probation  work  and  knew  a 
great  deal  about  it. 


455 


Reform  of  Rules  of  Procedure  in  the  Federal  Courts 


Stein:   I  don't  know  if  there's  anything  that  needs  to  be  said  about  this 

initial  conference  that  you  had  with  Chief  Justice  Warren  and  Chief 
Judge  John  Biggs.   It  was  mentioned  in  the  1958  annual  report  and 
in  the  write-up  it  said  that  recommendations  had  been  made  for  some 
changes.  One  was  to  establish  a  division  of  personnel  and  another 
was  to  add  a  space  expert  to  the  division  of  business  administration 
who  would  function  to  help  the  department  compete  better  with  other 
government  offices  for  available  office  space. 

Olney:    I  do  recall  those  things.   They  were  not  of  major  importance.   The 
judiciary  do  have  to  compete  with  other  federal  agencies  for  space 
in  federal  buildings.   The  GSA  [General  Services  Administration], 
which  has  general  administration  of  the  government  buildings  and 
space,  likes  to  design  buildings  according  to  their  own  ideas  of 
what's  convenient  and  thinks  nothing  of  putting  courts  in  with  all 
sorts  of  other  federal  agencies.   That  isn't  conducive  to  good 
court  administration  and  we  did  have  many  problems  which  were 
worked  out  to  more  or  less  satisfactory  answers,  but  it  wasn't  a 
major  matter. 

The  thing  that  was  going  on  immediately,  that  I  recall,  when  I 
went  over  there  was  the  effort  to  have  committees  on  the  rules  of 
procedure  in  the  federal  courts  set  up.   There  had  been  a  committee 
on  the  rules  of  civil  procedure  in  the  federal  courts  that  had  been 
appointed  by  Charles  Evans  Hughes  when  he  was  chief  justice  in  the 
1930s.   That  committee  had  done  a  superb  job  in  streamlining  civil 
procedure  in  the  federal  courts  through  the  rules  of  court. 

But  the  committee  had  become  old.   Its  jurisdiction  was  limited 
only  to  the  civil  rules  in  the  federal  courts  and  there  had  been  no 
committee  at  all — it  had  been  discharged — for  several  years. 

But  Earl  Warren  felt  that  there  was  a  need  for  further  improve 
ment  in  the  rules;  that  there  should  no  longer  be  a  separation  of 
the  rules  in  admiralty  proceedings  from  the  rules  in  ordinary  civil 
proceedings;  that  the  criminal  rules  needed  re-examination  and 
restudy;  that  bankruptcy  procedures  also  needed  restudy;  and  that 
rules  for  cases  on  appeal  needed  to  be  more  uniform  and  restudied. 
So  he  was  seeking  authorization  from  the  Congress,  as  chairman  of 
the  Judicial  Conference,  to  create  committees  on  this  subject  and 
to  obtain  the  necessary  funds  with  which  they  could  carry  on  their 
work. 


456 


Olney:   The  bill  was  in  the  Congress  at  the  time  I  came  into  the  Admin 
istrative  Office  and  I  recall  a  hearing,  I  believe  in  the  Senate, 
in  support  of  the  bill.   But  there  was  no  opposition  to  it.   It 
wasn't  a  controversial  matter  and  the  bill  was  passed  and  the 
appropriations  were  given. 

We  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  those  committees.   There  was  a 
general  rules  committee,  under  the  chairmanship  of  Judge  Albert  B. 
Maris,  which  had  an  oversight  over  the  work  of  all  the  other  com 
mittees  in  order  to  have  the  work  coordinated.   Then  each  of  these 
other  separate  subjects  had  a  separate  committee  with  its  own 
chairman.  Each  of  them  had  a  staff  member,  or  two,  called  a 
reporter.   They  were  distinguished  legal  scholars,  by  and  large, 
who  were  expert  at  draftsmanship. 

The  committees  were  made  up  of  eminent  judges,  law  professors, 
outstanding  lawyers — a  very  diverse  group.   They  were  selected  not 
only  because  of  their  familiarity  with  the  subject  but  also  geo 
graphically,  so  that  each  committee  had  a  reasonable  geographic 
spread,  because  practices  under  the  rules  had  been  different  in 
different  parts  of  the  country.   The  chief  justice  wanted  to  get 
as  broad  a  representation  as  he  could. 

The  Administrative  Office,  of  course,  did  all  the  housekeeping 
for  these  committees:  handled  their  funds,  paid  their  expenses, 
and  that  kind  of  thing.  We  also  contributed  to  some  of  their  work 
from  time  to  time.   The  bankruptcy  division,  of  course,  had  a  very 
great  contribution  to  make  to  the  bankruptcy  committee,  for  example. 

I  attended  many  of  the  committee  meetings,  but  by  no  means  all, 
and  I  tried  not  to  take  an  active  part  in  their  work  because  judges 
are  jealous  of  their  prerogatives  and  they  are  nervous  about  an 
administrative  organization  in  their  own  judicial  system  lest  they 
become  just  tools  of  an  administration.   So  I  didn't  take  any  big 
part  in  those  committee  meetings,  to  avoid  that  kind  of  feeling. 

Stein:   Are  reports  of  that  committee  available  anywhere? 

Olney:   Oh,  yes.   They  are  available  in  every  law  library  in  the  country 
and  many  law  offices  have  them.   Of  course,  all  the  federal  legal 
offices  have  them,  such  as  the  U.S.  Attorneys.   They  are  of  value 
because  in  interpreting  the  rules,  the  work  of  the  committee  and 
their  minutes,  like  the  history  of  an  act  of  Congress,  are  revealing 
as  to  what  the  purpose  of  the  rule  was,  things  that  were  considered 
in  connection  with  it. 


457 


The  Problem  of  Backlog  of  Cases  and  Some  Solutions 


The  Philadelphia  Experience 


Stein:   I  noticed  in  the  annual  reports  that  one  of  the  serious  problems 

that  you  faced  was  the  backlog  of  cases  in  federal  courts.   In  the 
annual  report  of  1958  you  noted  that  despite  the  Judicial  Confer 
ence's  adoption  of  six  months  as  a  standard  period  from  filing  to 
trial  for  a  normal  civil  case,  the  national  median  was  twelve 
months . 

Olney:   The  backlog  of  cases  was  a  problem  then  and  it  still  is  now.   It's 
even  more  of  a  problem  now  than  it  was  then;  I  don't  know  about 
that.  When  I  went  there  I  didn't  know  much  about  backlogs  of  cases 
or  about  so-called  delays  in  the  federal  court.   They  were  catch 
phrases  that  were  being  circulated  all  over  the  place.   People  were 
making  speeches  on  the  subject  from  time  to  time.   But  I  had  not 
grasped  what  was  involved  in  those  words . 

In  due  course,  I  found,  for  example,  that  there  may  be  many  cases 
on  file  in  a  court — a  great  many  cases  on  file — that  are  not  going 
to  take  one  day  of  judicial  time  to  dispose  of.   This  is  true  in  a 
great  many  condemnation  cases  where  the  interests  involved  are 
extremely  small,  and  in  many  other  types  of  cases.   But  statistical 
ly  they're  down  there  as  cases,  and  if  they've  sat  there  a  long  time 
it  makes  it  appear  as  though  the  court  is  strangling  with  overwork; 
you've  got  to  get  rid  of  these  cases. 

Then  with  respect  to  delays,  there  are  other  cases,  especially 
in  the  federal  system,  where  the  case  may  be  pending  for  a  very  long 
time  indeed.   A  good  example  is  an  anti-trust  suit  where  there  is  a 
consent  decree  with  continuing  jurisdiction  in  the  court,  where 
under  the  decree  business  is  continued  subject  to  the  conditions  of 
the  decree  and  with  continuing  jurisdiction  in  the  court  to  enforce 
it.   That  case  may  be  on  the  books  for  decades,  and  yet  there's  no 
denial  of  justice  or  anything  of  that  sort  because  the  case  is  there 
for  a  long  time.   But  statistically  it  makes  it  seem  like  Jarndyce 
vs.  Jarndyce  (the  famous  case  in  Dickens'  Bleak  House) ,  something 
that  grinds  on  and  on  and  is  never  ended. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  unquestionably  were  and  unquestionably 
are  many  suits  where  trial  is  necessary,  and  where  the  delay  in 
trial  and  in  getting  to  trial  and  the  delay  in  the  trial  process 
and  appeal  may  work  a  very  serious  injustice  indeed.   To  anyone 
trying  to  work  on  backlogs  as  a  problem  it  is  essential  to  get  an 


458 


Olney:   understanding  of  the  difference  between  these  different  kinds  of 
cases  and  also  to  understand  how  to  distinguish  them.  When  you 
see  them  on  the  docket,  what  is  justifiable  timewise  and  what  isn't 
in  the  given  cases?  Well,  it  took  me  a  long,  long  time  to  under 
stand  that.   It  isn't  in  any  book.  You  have  to  learn  it. 

There  were  other  things,  of  course,  we  found:  that  is  that  the 
mere  accumulation  of  cases  may  have  very  little  to  do  with  the 
delays.   I  think  the  most  important  thing  we  found  was  that  the 
judges  themselves  do  not  understand  delay.   They  do  not  understand 
what  happens  in  their  own  courts,  and  a  good  example  of  this  is 
what  took  place  in  Philadelphia.   This  must  have  been  along  in  1965 
and  '66,  along  in  there.   They  had  some  new  judgeships  and  they  had 
had  some  retirements  with  new  appointees  and  they  had  a  young, 
energetic  bench  of  judges  who  were  sincere  and  devoted  to  their 
work.   They  wanted  to  have  an  efficient  court,  and  yet  the  delay 
in  getting  to  trial  in  that  court  was  the  worst  of  any  metropolitan 
court  in  the  federal  system. 

There  were  two  other  courts  that  were  quite  similar  and  were 
useful  for  purposes  of  comparison.   One  of  them  was  the  court  in 
the  Northern  District  of  California  and  the  other  in  the  Northern 
District  of  Illinois.   Both  of  those  other  courts  were  about  the 
same  size  as  Philadelphia.   All  three  of  them  had  about  the  same 
kind  of  business,  about  the  same  percentage  of  maritime  business, 
the  same  percentage  of  personal  injury  cases  and  the  like.   Yet 
the  Chicago  and  San  Francisco  courts  were  reasonably  current. 

Well,  the  Philadelphia  judges  were  very  much  upset  by  their 
position  and  they  decided  to  make  an  all-out  effort  to  improve 
their  standing.   They  worked  like  dogs.   They  put  in  ungodly  hours 
trying  to  get  rid  of  their  cases  and  they  made  little  or  no  progress, 
They  found  this  very  discouraging,  and  after  beating  their  brains 
out  on  that  thing  they  turned  to  the  Administrative  Office  and 
asked  us  if  we  would  come  down  and  take  a  look  at  their  operation 
and  see  if  we  could  see  anything  the  matter  with  it,  and  we  did. 

Joe  Spaniol  went  down.  He  had  gone  over  their  statistics  very 
carefully  and  in  studying  the  statistics  it  was  evident  that  it 
was  the  Employers'  Liability  Act  cases,  especially  the  maritime 
insurance  cases.   They  had  a  large  number  of  these  cases  and  they 
didn't  seem  to  move  very  much.  Well,  it  took  Joe  several  weeks  of 
checking  the  actual  dockets  on  the  cases  before  he  could  perceive 
what  was  going  on. 

Well,  it  turned  out  that  at  that  time  there  were  just  three  or 
four  law  firms  that  had  a  virtual  monopoly  on  this  admiralty  busi 
ness  in  Philadelphia.   It  was  the  cases  of  these  firms  that  were 


459 


Olney:   holding  up  the  whole  docket.   In  examining  the  dockets  he  found 

that  when  cases  would  be  ready  for  trial  and  were  called  for  trial, 
the  judges  would  usually  continue  the  case  because  one  or  the  other 
of  the  lawyers  was  tied  up  in  some  other  case  in  somebody  else's 
court,  and  so  the  case  would  have  to  wait  until  they  got  through. 
Well,  when  you  had  so  many  cases  handled  by  so  few  lawyers,  if 
you're  going  to  limit  it  to  that  number  of  lawyers,  clearly  you 
weren't  going  to  be  able  to  clear  that  docket  at  all. 

This  was  explained  to  the  judges  and  it  took  quite  a  little 
explaining  and  convincing  them  that  the  trouble  wasn't  in  the 
clerk's  office.   The  trouble  wasn't  with  the  judges  at  all.   The 
trouble  was  in  the  law  offices.   That's  where  the  bottleneck  was. 
But  they  finally  recognized  that  fact,  and  then  they  set  about  it 
and  took  it  up  with  the  law  firms,  and  they  had  quite  a  time  with 
them  persuading  them  that  they  had  to  be  ready  for  trial  and  that 
it  meant  they  either  had  to  add  lawyers  to  their  own  firms  to 
handle  these  cases  or  else  farm  them  out  to  somebody  else  who  could 
and  would  be  ready  for  trial  when  the  case  was  called. 

The  judges  had  to  do  this  by  taking  charge  of  the  calendar  and 
saying,  "There  are  not  going  to  be  any  continuances."  When  that 
happened,  this  thing  cleared  up  in  no  time.   Now,  here  were  these 
highly  intelligent  men,  devoted  to  their  work,  doing  their  very  best 
to  try  to  find  out  what  was  the  trouble,  and  they  couldn't  see  it, 
although  it  was  staring  them  right  in  the  face. 

This  is  typical  of  judges.   I  don't  know  why  it  is  that  any 
judge,  or  most  any  judge,  will  concede  that  he  isn't  the  greatest 
jurist  in  the  world,  that  there  probably  are  or  have  been  others 
who  are  as  great  as  he  when  it  comes  to  handling  legal  principles. 
But  although  they  may  be  a  little  modest  there,  when  it  comes  to 
administrative  matters  every  judge  thinks  he  knows  everything  about 
it  [laughter]  and  that  no  one  can  tell  him  anything  about  adminis 
trating  his  own  court.   That's  the  reason  they're  in  a  mess  right 
now,  in  my  judgment. 

I  think  it's  just  as  true  of  the  Judicial  Conference  of  today 
as  it  was  in  my  time.   Although  these  men  are  my  very  good  friends 
and  old  friends,  they  just  won't  listen  on  administrative  matters. 
So  I  hope  that  the  new  director  of  the  Federal  Judicial  Center  will 
be  able  to  make  some  dent  on  them. 


460 


Stein:   Was  this  the  gist  of  one  of  the  memos  that  you  wrote  to  the  Center 
that  I  think  you  gave  me  some  material  about?*  You  had  sent  them 
a  proposal,  two  suggestions,  back  in  '70  or  '71. 

Olney:   Yes,  yes.   That's  right.   There  were  two  proposals  there.   One  of 
them  was  brought  about  by  a  speech  that  Chief  Justice  Burger  made 
in  which  he  said  we  ought  to  be  able  to  dispose  of  criminal  cases 
within  sixty  days  and  that  ought  to  be  our  objective.   Everyone 
agrees  with  that:  that  that  should  be  an  objective.   But  how  do  you 
do  it? 

I  had  a  proposal  to  make  because  I've  seen  it  done,  and  I  felt 
and  I  still  feel  that  I  know  how  it  could  be  done,  and  particularly 
how  it  could  be  done  in  the  federal  system  because  it's  so  hier 
archical  in  nature  with  an  attorney  general  in  charge  of  all  the 
U.S.  Attorneys  and  also  in  charge  of  the  principal  investigative 
agencies.   But  it's  something  that  would  have  to  be  organized. 

It  can  be  done  simply  by  not  continuing  cases,  insisting  that 
the  parties  be  ready  for  trial  and  trying  them  when  they're  ready. 
Now,  that's  easy  to  say,  but  it  means  going  back  as  far  as  the 
investigative  agencies:  the  FBI  and  the  Treasury  agents  and  all  the 
rest.  What  needs  to  be  done  there  is  that  they  need  to  be  told  by 
the  Department  of  Justice  not  to  come  in  and  seek  warrants  unless 
they've  got  a  case  that  they're  ready  to  try,  because  when  the 
warrants  are  issued  and  the  people  are  brought  in,  the  case  is 
going  to  be  tried.   As  it  is  now,  they  make  arrests  and  make  the 
case  later,  half  the  time. 

When  we  had  the  flood  of  draft-evasion  cases  in  San  Francisco 
during  the  Vietnam  War,  for  example,  they  piled  up  so  that  between 
the  time  a  man  was  arrested  for  draft  evasion  and  the  time  that  he 
was  brought  into  court  for  arraignment  was  between  a  year  and  a 
half  and  two  years,  just  for  arraignment.   The  reason  was  it  took 
that  long  to  get  the  fellow's  file  out  of  Washington  so  they  could 
prepare  the  case.  Well,  that  is  ridiculous.   That's  just  the  way 
not  to  do  it.   They  ought  not  to  issue  any  warrant  unless  they're 
going  to  take  the  man  into  court  and  proceed. 


*"A  Proposal  for  Certain  Statistical  Studies  To  Be  Undertaken  By 
The  Federal  Judicial  Center,"  submitted  by  Warren  Olney  III,  consult 
ant,  January  25,  1971.   In  The  Bancroft  Library. 


461 


Olney:   Now,  this  means  that  if  the  Department  of  Justice  is  going  to  say, 
"Don't  bring  your  cases  in  until  they're  ready  to  try,"  they're 
going  to  have  to  try  them.   It  means  that  when  the  case  is  called 
before  the  judge,  the  department  must  answer,  "We're  ready;  we'll 
go  to  trial  on  the  first  available  date."  And  they  must  oppose 
continuances  by  defense  counsel.   But  you  not  only  have  to  say  it; 
you've  got  to  do  it.   You've  got  to  be  ready  and  this  takes  work,  a 
lot  of  work. 

Then  on  top  of  that,  to  meet  the  backlog  where  there's  any  kind 
of  an  accumulation  of  cases,  you  have  to  take  into  consideration, 
where  are  you  going  to  get  the  courtrooms,  where  are  you  going  to 
get  the  judges,  where  are  you  going  to  get  the  extra  prosecutors. 
You  can't  do  everything  at  once  in  this  thing.   It  all  has  to  be 
planned  out.   There  are  some  districts  that  have  a  bad  delay  situa 
tion  and  others  don't.   You  don't  have  to  do  everything  in  every 
district  all  at  the  same  time.   But  you  can  change  policies  and 
implement  these  policies  and  they'll  work.   I  know  it  because  I've 
seen  it  done  and  I've  operated  under  it. 

Stein:   That  was  essentially  Earl  Warren's  principle,  wasn't  it,  when  he  was 
district  attorney? 

Olney:   Exactly.   He  made  a  tremendous  reputation  on  it. 

Stein:   I  seem  to  remember  an  editorial  which  you  gave  me  a  copy  of,  that 

appeared  in  the  Berkeley  Gazette,  about  how  he  had  reduced  the  time 
from  arrest  to  incarceration. 

Olney:   Yes,  that's  right.   That's  right. 

Stein:   I  wonder  if  there  was  something  in  the  file  that  outlines  those  two 
suggestions  that  you  made  to  the  Judicial  Center. 

Olney:   It's  in  that  paper  I  gave  you.   [tape  off  while  Mr.  Olney  and  inter 
viewer  review  files] 

Stein:   So  now  we  have  this  summary  by  Mr.  Eldridge  of  your  and  Mr.  Beattie's 
proposals  on  the  Speedy  Trial  Project.* 


*See  Appendix  G,  memo  to  Judge  Alfred  Murrah,  from  Eldridge,  re: 
Speedy  Trial  Project. 


462 


The  Brooklyn  Project 


Stein:  One  of  the  things  I  came  across  in  the  annual  report  was  the  dis 
cussion  of  the  Brooklyn  project.  Did  you  have  any  involvement  in 
that? 

Olney:   Oh,  yes,  indeed.   As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  my  brainchild  that  we 
try  this.   It  happened  that  at  that  time  the  United  States  district 
court  in  Brooklyn  was  in  very,  very  bad  shape,  a  long  accumulation 
of  cases  and  every  conceivable  problem. 

When  I  came  to  the  office  there  was  a  committee  of  the  Judicial 
Conference,  chairmanned  by  Judge  [Alfred]  Murrah,  on  pretrial. 
Pretrial,  generally  speaking,  is  the  notion  that  in  advance  of  the 
trial  the  judge  should  call  in  the  counsel  and  have  a  discussion 
with  them  as  to  what  they  can  agree  on  to  save  time  at  the  trial, 
so  that  they're  not  spending  a  lot  of  time  calling  evidence  and 
proving  things  that  the  other  side  admits. 

Now,  that's  generally  the  idea  of  it.   As  a  method  of  disposing 
of  legal  business,  it  had  proved  quite  effective  in  some  cases 
because  not  only  was  a  great  deal  of  time  being  saved  in  a  pro 
cedural  way,  but  very  often  bringing  the  parties  together  and 
having  to  compare  their  respective  cases  would  result  in  a  settle 
ment,  so  there  wouldn't  have  to  be  any  trial  at  all.   The  device 
was  developed  first  in  Michigan  in  the  state  courts  and  then  was 
tried  various  places  and  it  spread. 

Some  of  the  judges  became  very  enthusiastic  about  it  and  Judge 
Murrah  was  one.   He  caused  a  committee  of  the  Judicial  Conference 
to  be  appointed  to  encourage  the  use  of  pretrial  in  the  federal 
courts .   There  were  great  claims  made  for  what  you  could  do  in 
clearing  up  a  bad  calendar  situation. 

Well,  I  hadn't  been  in  the  Administrative  Office  very  long,  but 
in  talking  with  Judge  Murrah  I  said,  "If  these  methods  are  as  good 
as  they're  supposed  to  be,  why  wouldn't  it  be  worthwhile  to  try  it, 
actually  try  it  in  a  court  that's  in  trouble,  serious  trouble,  and 
see  what  would  happen?"  He  thought  that  was  an  excellent  idea,  and 
where  would  we  go?   I  said,  "One  place  that  sure  needs  it  and  where 
it  couldn't  do  any  possible  harm  is  Brooklyn."  We  looked  at  the 
statistics  in  Brooklyn  and  concluded  that  it  was  certainly  ripe. 

They  were  not  using  pretrial  procedure  in  Brooklyn,  so  the 
problem  was:  could  we  persuade  the  Brooklyn  judges  to  allow  us  to 
bring  in  a  number  of  outside  judges  who  were  using  pretrial  and 


463 


Olney:    take  a  section  of  their  calendar  and  assign  it  to  these  outside 

judges  and  see  what  would  happen  and  make  a  comparison  between  the 
ones  that  were  being  handled  by  pretrial  and  the  ones  that  weren't? 

Well,  it's  kind  of  a  delicate  thing  to  take  up  with  a  court,  but 
I  had  to  do  it.   Anyway,  I  went  up  and  saw  the  chief  judge,  and  he 
was  a  little  doubtful  about  it.  He  said,  "I'm  willing  to  try  any 
thing,  but  I  don't  know  about  these  other  boys." 

He  called  the  court  together  and  had  me  explain  what  we  had  in 
mind,  taking  half  their  calendar  and  assigning  it  to  other  judges 
who  would  pretry  the  cases,  by  way  of  comparison. 

Stein:   Where  were  these  judges  from  that  you  were  bringing  in? 

Olney:   Well,  we  had  to  find  out  if  the  Brooklyn  judges  would  allow  it, 

first.  They  discussed  it  and  finally  one  of  the  judges  said  to  the 
chief  judge,  "Well,  what  do  you  think  about  it?"  The  chief  judge's 
response  was,  "What  have  we  got  to  lose?"  [laughter] 

So  they  agreed  to  do  it,  and  then  Judge  Hurrah  and  I  had  to  find 
judges  who  would  be  willing  to  take  part  in  this  experiment.   There 
were  the  judges  who  were  on  his  committee.   There  were  other  enthus 
iasts  for  pretrial  nearby  and  they  were  willing  to  give  it  a  whirl. 
Judge  William  F.  Smith  from  New  Jersey  was  willing  to  take  part  in 
it  and  he  operated  as  chief  judge  for  the  pretrial  section  of  the 
court.   [tape  interrupted  to  consult  annual  report  of  the  Adminis 
trative  Office  of  the  Courts,  1959]  He  acted  as  the  coordinator 
for  these  cases.   Besides  him,  other  judges  who  took  part  were 
Judge  [Jean]  Breitenstein  from  Denver  and  Judge  [Albert]  Sherman 
Christenson  from  Utah.   There  were  a  number  of  others,  too. 

The  cases  were  selected  very  much  at  random  in  order  to  make  the 
comparison.   In  taking  the  files  out,  these  visiting  judges  quickly 
found  that  the  files  for  most  of  them  were  by  no  means  complete,  and 
it  took  several  days  just  to  get  the  papers  filed  properly  so  they 
could  handle  it.   They  went  ahead  with  their  pretrial  program  and 
we  kept  track  of  it  as  best  we  could.  The  net  result  of  it  is  in 
those  reports  that  you  read.   It  did  indeed  improve  the  condition 
in  the  Brooklyn  court  immensely.   They  got  rid  of  an  awful  lot  of 
cases. 

It  was  done  without  any  complaint  from  the  bar  or  the  litigants. 
The  only  complaint  we  received  was  from  one  of  Brooklyn's  leading 
personal-injury  lawyers,  and  his  complaint  was  that  we  were  making 
altogether  too  much  money  for  him  by  closing  these  cases  out, 
because  he  was  getting  all  of  this  money  in  one  year  and  his  income 
tax  was  going  to  be  terrific.   [laughter] 


464 


Olney:   We  had  this  experience  with  the  so-called  Brooklyn  experiment,  but 
we  didn't  learn  near  as  much  as  we  had  hoped  or  as  we  should  have, 
and  the  reason  we  didn't  was  that  we  had  not  prepared  statistically 
for  the  thing.  We  knew  that  the  visiting  judges  had  disposed  of  so 
many  cases  and  there  was  this  and  that  and  the  other  kind  of  case 
while  the  other  judges  were  disposing  of  an  equal  number.   But  we 
hadn't  done  the  necessary  preparatory  work  to  get  the  real  benefit 
out  of  an  experiment.   To  conduct  an  experiment  you  need  to,  before 
the  thing  even  starts,  make  very  close  observations  and  records  so 
that  you  know  what  it  is  you're  starting  from,  and  we  didn't.   It 
was  a  good  effort,  a  good  try,  and  worth  doing  in  that  sense,  and 
we  did  learn  something  from  it,  but  we  didn't  learn  from  it  in  any 
conclusive  way  whether  pretrial  is  really  effective  or  not. 

Stein:   Is  that  something  that  has  been  remedied  since? 

Olney:   No,  they  never  tried  another  experiment  like  it.   Some  of  the  other 
judges  in  other  parts  of  the  country  were  horrified  by  it  and  said, 
"You'll  never  do  that  in  my  court,"  and  this  kind  of  thing.   They 
thought  importing  a  whole  benchful  of  foreigners  to  dispose  of  cases 
was  something  that  shouldn't  be  done.   So  it's  never  been  tried 
again. 


The  Court  Calendar  Conundrum 


Olney:   Along  about  the  same  time — in  fact,  from  the  time  I  was  in  the 
office  until  I  got  out — there  was  another  one  of  these  standing 
disputes  among  judges  about  trial  work  and  that  is  how  should  the 
calendar  run.   There  are  two  ways  of  running  a  calendar.   One  is 
the  master  calendar  system  and  the  other  is  the  individual  calendar 
system. 

With  the  master  calendar,  all  cases  that  are  ready  for  trial  are 
assigned  to  one  department  and  then  they  are  sent  out  to  be  tried 
according  to  what  courtroom  and  what  judge  are  available.   The  idea 
is  to  keep  a  constant  feed  of  judicial  work  going  into  these  several 
departments  to  keep  everybody  busy.   So  if  a  judge  has  a  case  and 
it's  settled  on  the  courthouse  steps,  as  it  often  is,  instead  of 
taking  the  day  off  with  nothing  to  do,  there  is  a  case  ready  that 
can  be  sent  to  him.   He  can  try  that  one. 

The  individual  calendar  system  is  based  on  the  notion  that  the 
cases  as  they  come  are  assigned  to  individual  judges  just  by  rota 
tion  at  random.   Then  each  judge  becomes  personally  responsible  for 


465 


Olney:    that  case  from  beginning  to  end.   You're  always  before  the  same 

judge  no  matter  whether  it's  a  motion  to  dismiss  or  a  motion  for  a 
subpoena  or  whatever  it  is;  it's  always  the  same  judge. 

Well,  the  judges  differ  tremendously  in  their  opinions  as  to  the 
merits  of  those  two  systems.  There  is  one  group  of  judges  who  will 
tell  you  that  the  master  calendar  system  is  the  greatest  excuse  for 
getting  out  of  work  that  was  ever  invented,  that  the  assignment  of 
cases  is  easily  arranged  and  the  clerk  can  be  persuaded  not  to  send 
you  something  when  you  want  to  go  out  to  the  races . 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  other  judges  who  say  that  the 
individual  calendar  is  the  most  unfair  to  both  the  judges  and  the 
litigants,  that  when  it's  just  at  random  what  cases  come  to  a  judge, 
he  may  get  three  or  four  immensely  long  cases ,  a  patent  suit  and  an 
anti-trust  case  and  all  sorts  of  things  piled  one  on  top  of  the 
other.  Meanwhile,  he'll  be  picking  up  his  share  of  other  cases  as 
they're  filed,  and  he'll  have  a  workload  that's  out  of  all  propor 
tion  to  what  other  judges  are  having  to  contend  with,  so  that  it's 
quite  unfair. 

Then  also  some  notorious  situations  have  developed,  as  was  the 
case  in  Boston  where  they  were  using  the  individual  calendar  system 
and  they  had  a  Judge  [Charles]  Wyzanski,  a  very  well  known,  brilliant 
judge,  very  able.   They  had  another  judge  who  was  just  the  opposite. 
He  was  a  dolt.  Wyzanski  could  handle  his  calendar  with  such  expert- 
ness  and  ease  that  he  could  and  would  leave  for  Europe  at  the  first 
of  June  and  he  wouldn't  be  back  until  some  time  in  September  and  he 
would  have  taken  care  of  every  piece  of  judicial  business  that  was 
given  to  him. 

Meanwhile,  this  other  judge  wouldn't  have  been  spending  his  time 
working,  I'm  sorry  to  say.   He'd  be  spending  most  of  his  time  with 
a  bottle  or  at  the  races  or  some  other  darn  thing.   But  here  were 
the  poor  litigants  in  his  court  being  denied  justice.   Other  judges 
felt  that  the  judges  on  the  court  have  an  obligation  to  all  of  the 
litigants  that  enter  their  court  to  see  that  they  get  a  reasonably 
fair  shake. 

Well,  these  two  systems  have  their  advocates  among  the  judges, 
and  when  I  came  there  one  group  would  pour  their  case  into  one 
ear  while  the  other  was  doing  the  same  thing  into  the  other  ear. 
After  observing  it  for  some  time,  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
there  isn't  any  superior  method,  that  one  isn't  really  any  better 
than  the  other  one  as  a  technique.   Either  one  can  be  very  ineffi 
cient  and  either  one  can  work  very  well  depending  on  whether  the 
judges  want  to  make  it  work  or  not. 


466 


Olney:   During  the  years  I  was  there,  a  number  of  courts  changed  their 

system.   Some  went  to  the  individual  system  and  some  went  to  the 
master  calendar  system  and  vice  versa.   The  thing  that  was  notice 
able  was  that  there  was  always  an  improvement  every  time  there  was 
a  change.   The  reason  was  that  the  change  indicated  that  the  judges 
were  disturbed  about  the  conditions  in  their  court  and  they  wanted 
to  improve  it.  When  they  were  willing  to  change  their  system  in 
order  to  improve  it,  it  meant  that  they  were  serious  and  really  did 
want  to  do  something  and  the  result  would  show.   It  would  work 
better  and  then,  of  course,  they  would  think  it  was  the  system, 
and  what  it  really  was  was  their  improved  attention  and  effort  and 
cooperation. 

A  number  of  these  courts  worked  out  sort  of  hybrid  systems.   In 
the  Northern  District  of  Illinois  when  William  J.  Campbell  was  the 
chief  judge,  they  had  the  individual  calendar  system.   But  a  few 
months  before  summer  approached,  they  would  take  a  look  at  every 
body's  calendar  to  see  what  the  status  of  it  was,  and  if  somebody 
had  a  big  backlog  they  would  reassign  the  cases,  and  they  would  all 
go  to  work  and  clean  those  things  up  before  they  went  on  vacation 
so  that  the  whole  court  was  current  and  up  to  date.   Now,  judges 
who  were  willing  to  work  that  way  could  operate  just  as  well  under 
one  system  as  under  another. 

But  one  of  the  things  that  has  been  of  concern  to  me  is  that  in 
the  Federal  Judicial  Center,  to  my  amazement,  they  have  issued  all 
kinds  of  bulletins  and  things  of  this  kind  urging  all  the  courts  to 
adopt  the  individual  calendar  system.   The  head  of  the  Center  has 
been  sold  on  that  system.   This,  of  course,  is  being  done  without 
any  scientific  examination.   It's  just  another  gut  reaction  which 
characterizes  judicial  administration  from  top  to  bottom. 

Stein:   Despite  your  many  efforts  to  inject  some  scientific,  statistical 
work. 

Olney:   Well,  it's  really  a  little  ridiculous  that  I  would  be  the  one  to  be 
regarded  as  doing  that,  because  I  had  no  background.   I'm  not  a 
statistician  and  never  was  a  scientist.   [laughter]  All  I  can  say 
is  that  wrestling  with  these  things  makes  it  apparent  that  most  of 
the  problems  result  from  ignorance  and  failure  to  get  the  facts . 
The  only  way  to  do  it  is  in  a  scientific  way.   [telephone  interrup 
tion] 


Problem  Judges 


Stein:   Shall  we  go  on  to  discuss  the  problem  of  overage  and  incompetent 
judges? 


467 


Olney:   The  federal  judiciary  was  undermanned,  there's  no  doubt  about  that, 
in  1958,  when  I  went  into  the  Administrative  Office.   That  happens 
periodically  and  the  reason  is  political.   There  isn't  much  that  can 
be  done  about  it  as  long  as  we  have  the  same  system  for  appointing 
judges.   The  judges  are  appointed,  of  course,  by  being  named  by  the 
president,  nominated  and  then  confirmed  by  the  Senate,  and  the  Senate 
has  its  own  rules  on  confirmation,  one  of  which  is  that  they  won't 
confirm  any  judge  who  is  being  opposed  by  the  Senator  of  his  state. 
This  is  without  regard  to  party  affiliation. 

On  the  other  hand,  there's  always  pressure,  of  course,  on  every 
administration  to  appoint  as  judges  people  from  their  own  ranks, 
which  is  quite  understandable,  and  there's  nothing,  in  my  judgment, 
wrong  about  that.   I  think  that  the  judiciary  has  to  respond,  to 
some  extent,  to  the  political  facts  of  life  and  political  changes 
in  the  country. 

This  works  very  nicely  when  the  president  and  the  majority  in 
Congress  are  all  in  the  same  party.   But  so  often  the  president  is 
from  one  party  and  the  majority  in  Congress  is  of  another.   Then  as 
the  next  presidential  election  approaches,  the  Congress  becomes  less 
and  less  willing  to  act  and  confirm  new  appointees  because  they 
figure  with  the  next  election,  they'll  have  their  own  man  in  as 
president  and  will  get  either  Democrats  or  Republicans  or  whatever. 
So  these  backlogs  of  unacted-on  judgeships  appear  and  that  was  the 
case  here.   There  had  been  recommendations  for  forty  or  fifty  addi 
tional  judgeships  and  there  was  no  action. 

But  those  things  took  care  of  themselves.  When  the  Kennedy 
administration  came  in,  there  were  about  sixty  new  district  judges 
all  appointed  about  the  same  time.   That  filled  that  up.   So  that's 
the  nature  of  the  problem  you  have  with  additional  judgeships. 

However,  there  is  always  the  problem  of  judges  who  get  too  old 
or  become  incompetent  in  some  way  or  other,  sometimes  through 
senility  and  sometimes  through  other  ailments.   It's  a  very  delicate 
situation,  indeed,  to  know  what  to  do  in  cases  of  that  kind.   The 
retirement  system  for  federal  judges  is  just  about  the  best  imagin 
able.   They  can  retire  at  full  salary,  after  twenty  years  service 
at  age  sixty-five  or  after  ten  years  service  at  age  seventy,  which 
is  very  helpful. 

But  there  are  not  as  many  of  them  who  take  advantage  of  that  as 
you  might  think  and  it's  for  a  curious  reason.  We  had,  for  example, 
a  number  of  judges  who  were  eligible  for  that  retirement,  who  lived 
in  such  difficult  climates  as  North  and  South  Dakota,  places  of  that 
kind,  where  you  would  have  thought  that  a  man  seventy  years  of  age 


468 


Olney:   would  have  welcomed  the  chance  to  move  to  Florida  or  somewhere 

pleasanter,  but  they  wouldn't  do  it.   They  wouldn't  take  advantage 
of  this  retirement  system. 

In  making  inquiries  into  this,  the  explanation  became  clear. 
When  a  man  goes  on  the  bench,  the  longer  he's  on  the  bench  the  more 
isolated  he  becomes  from  everybody  else.  When  he  becomes  a  judge 
he  has  to  cut  himself  off  from  his  old  lawyer  friends  who  can't  have 
lunch  with  him  anymore  the  way  they  used  to.   It  just  doesn't  look 
right  to  be  buddies  the  way  you  used  to  be.   Old  lawyer  friends  die 
off  and  go  elsewhere.   The  new  bar  coming  up  is  always  at  a  distance. 
He's  never  been  very  friendly  with  them.   He  knows  them  in  and  out 
of  court.   He  gets  more  and  more  isolated.   The  people  that  he  comes 
into  contact  with,  and  that  come  to  mean  a  great  deal  to  him,  are 
the  court  personnel.   It's  his  secretary,  his  clerk,  his  bailiff, 
the  probation  officer — the  people  around  the  courthouse. 

Stein:   And,  I  would  assume,  the  other  judges? 

Olney:   Yes,  the  other  judges,  too,  and  some  of  these  judges  were  in  one- 
man  courts.   It  appears  that  they  would  rather  stay  in  a  place  like 
North  or  South  Dakota  (I  don't  know  why  I  pick  on  them)  and  enjoy 
those  few  social  contacts  that  they've  got  left  than  they  would  go 
to  Florida  where  they  don't  know  anybody.   It's  a  very  interesting 
sidelight. 

We  did  have  other  judges  who  insisted  on  remaining,  trying  to 
function  as  judges,  who  couldn't  hear  well,  couldn't  see  well, 
couldn't  remember,  and  became  very  sad  specimens.   Then  there  were 
also  judges  against  whom  complaints  were  made:  complaints  of  unfair 
ness,  bias,  arrogance. 

We  had  a  good  example  to  follow  in  California  with  this  commis 
sion  they  had  on  the  fitness  of  judges.   Judge  John  Biggs,  Jr.,  who 
had  years  of  experience  with  handling  judges,  was  very  acute  and 
aware  of  this  program.   He  thought  we  ought  to  have  a  system  modeled 
on  that  California  set-up.   So  we  had  one  of  the  committees — I  guess 
it  was  Biggs 's  Committee  on  Court  Administration — give  consideration 
to  it  and  they  had  a  subcommittee.   Judge  J.  Edward  Lumbard  was  the 
chairman  of  that.  We  had  a  scheme — my  recollection  is  that  it 
involved  using  the  judicial  councils  of  the  circuits,  primarily,  to 
hear  complaints  and  make  recommendations  with  respect  to  incapaci 
tated  judges. 

But  the  thing  died  aborning.   The  subcommittee  chairman  was 
Judge  J.  Edward  Lumbard.   He  had  espoused  this  thing;  he  wrote  the 
report;  he  presented  it  to  the  Judicial  Conference;  the  Conference 
voted  in  favor  of  it;  and  no  sooner  did  that  happen  than  he  went 


469 


Olney:   out  and  went  to  work  and  undercut  the  whole  darn  thing.   The  judges 
in  his  own  court  didn't  like  the  idea,  and  so  he  just  changed  his 
mind  and  undercut  it,  and  we  never  got  to  first  base  with  it. 
There's  still  talk  about  it,  but  they  haven't  done  anything  effec 
tive  with  it.   There's  a  proposal  now,  I  believe — I  don't  remember 
whether  it's — yes,  it's  in  legislative  form — to  have  a  commission 
on  judicial  fitness,  continuing  judicial  fitness. 

We  do  that  in  the  military.   Every  so  often  high-ranking  officers 
have  to  be  examined  by  a  board,  both  physically  and  mentally  and 
everything  else.   It's  essential  and  it's  just  as  essential  that 
judges  have  all  their  buttons. 

That  was  one  of  the  great  projects  that  we  had  that  didn't  flower. 
But  when  I  say  that  it  didn't  flower,  I  mean  that  we  never  got  any 
thing  through.   That  doesn't  mean  that  the  effort  was  wasted.   These 
changes  in  the  judicial  system,  by  the  very  nature  of  the  system, 
are  bound  to  take  years,  a  long,  long  time,  and  a  lot  of  groundwork, 
spade  work,  was  done  on  this.   I  think  it  will  work  out  eventually. 

There  was  a  lot  done  beforehand,  years  before,  when  Hatton 
Summers  was  chairman  of  the  House  Judiciary  Committee.   They  had 
had  an  epidemic  of  corrupt  federal  judges.   Judge  Martin  T.  Manton 
of  the  Second  Circuit  went  to  the  penitentiary  for  taking  bribes. 
Judge  Albert  W.  Johnson  of  Pennsylvania  was  a  known  crook  who  had 
to  leave  the  bench  and  should  have  gone  to  prison.   There  were  three 
judges  in  Delaware  whose  decisions,  it  was  discovered,  were  paid  for 
in  important  patent  cases,  and  they  had  to  undo  all  their  decisions 
and  send  the  litigation  back  up  to  the  Supreme  Court  again. 

This  was  at  the  time  when  Judge  Biggs  became  a  judge  and  he  had 
been  all  through  that.   But  at  that  period,  Hatton  Summers  tried  to 
set  up  a  statutory  procedure  for  hearing  charges  against  judges  and 
for  taking  care  of  disabled  judges  at  the  same  time.   They  had 
hearings  on  it.   There  were  arguments  that  it  was  unconstitutional 
and  there  were  arguments  that  it  was  constitutional,  but  Congress 
never  did  act  on  it.   But  if  he  hadn't  done  that,  we  probably 
wouldn't  have  done  as  much  as  we  did;  and  if  we  hadn't  done  as  much 
as  we  did,  they  wouldn't  be  working  on  it  now. 

Stein:   It  sounds  like  just  a  matter  of  chipping  away  slowly  at  a  great, 
huge  granite  block. 


Olney:   Yes,  that's  right. 
Stein:   Do  you  want  to  stop  here? 
Olney:   Any  time  you  want. 


470 


Protracted  Cases:   The  Problem  and  a  Solution 
[Interview  16:  September  20,  1977] 

Stein:   Let's  start  this  time  with  the  problem  of  protracted  cases,  which, 
I  gather,  came  to  a  head  during  your  administration. 

Olney:   Yes,  it  did,  although  it  was  a  very  old  problem.  Way  back  in  the 

forties  and  fifties  these  so-called  protracted  cases  began  appearing 
in  the  federal  court  system.   They  were  cases  the  trial  of  which 
involved  long,  long  period  of  time  and  voluminous  transcripts  and 
huge  numbers  of  exhibits  and  very  long  records,  oh,  anywhere  from 
seven  thousand  to  eighteen  thousand  pages  of  transcript  in  a  single 
case.  Many  of  them  were  anti-trust  suits,  although  one  of  them  was 
a  criminal  case:  the  first  prosecution  of  the  Communist  party. 

Stein:   Was  that  the  Smith  Act  case? 

Olney:   That  was  the  Smith  Act  case,  which  was  a  nine-months  trial.   These 
cases  began  presenting  the  same  kind  of  administrative  problem  to 
the  courts  as  the  tremendous  influx  of  new  cases.   They  had  a 
tendency,  of  course,  to  clog  the  calendars.   Judges  gave  a  lot  of 
thought  as  to  how  cases  of  that  type  should  be  handled  and  whether 
there  shouldn't  be  special  procedures  developed  for  handling  them. 

A  lot  of  work  was  done  on  that.   Chief  Justice  [Fred]  Vinson 
had  appointed  Judge  E.  Barrett  Prettyman,  the  chief  judge  of  the 
court  of  appeals  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  as  chairman  of  the 
committee  to  make  a  report  on  the  subject,  which  the  committee  did. 
It's  known  as  the  Prettyman  Report — and  I  think  it  came  out  about 
1950  or  '51 — in  which  there  were  procedures  recommended  to  judges 
to  follow  when  they  were  confronted  with  cases  of  this  type. 

But  the  number  of  these  cases — this  type  of  case — continued  to 
increase,  and  in  1960  Judge  [Sylvester]  Ryan,  who  was  chief  judge 
of  the  Southern  District  of  New  York,  which  had  far  more  anti-trust 
suits  than  any  other  district,  reported  that  there  were  at  least 
350  of  these  potentially  protracted  cases  pending  in  his  court. 

The  Judicial  Conference  worked  up — that  is,  a  committee  under 
the  chairmanship  of  Judge  [Alfred  P.]  Hurrah — a  Handbook  of 
Recommended  Procedures  for  the  Trial  of  Protracted  Cases,  which 
the  Conference  adopted  in  March  of  1960.   That  has  been  a  very 
useful  little  handbook  and  is  still  in  current  use. 

But  along  in  1962  a  case  came  along  that  had  no  precedent  at 
all  procedurally,  and  this  grew  out  of  an  anti- trust  suit  that  was 
brought  against  General  Electric,  Westinghouse,  and  three  or  four 


471 


Olney:   other  of  the  large  electrical  manufacturing  companies.   The  anti 
trust  suit  had  been  filed  in  Philadelphia.   It  was  a  criminal 
action  brought  by  the  government.   The  case  was  tried  and  the 
defendants  were  found  guilty.   The  defendants  included  not  only  the 
companies  but  a  number  of  the  individual  officers,  including  some 
very  highly  placed  officers  in  those  companies. 

The  case  caused  a  great  furor  at  the  time  because  when  it  came 

to  the  sentence,  the  judge  imposed  jail  sentences  on  these  officers 

and  that  had  not  been  done  in  anti- trust  suits  before.   It  really 

shook  the  boys  up.   It's  a  pity  that  there  haven't  been  more  jail 

sentences  imposed  in  those  cases. 

Well,  a  conviction  of  that  kind  opens  the  doors  for  suits  for 
treble  damages  by  the  persons  who  were  injured  by  the  conspiracy. 
In  this  case,  the  conspirators  had  been  manufacturers  of  very  heavy 
electrical  equipment — big  turbines,  generators,  heavy  equipment 
that's  needed  for  electrical  plants.   The  immediate  victims,  if 
you  want  to  call  it  that,  of  the  conspiracy  to  raise  prices  were 
the  electrical  companies,  both  privately  owned  and  publicly  owned, 
all  over  the  country.   Suits  were  commenced  by  a  number  of  those 
electrical  companies  for  treble  damages  against  General  Electric, 
Westinghouse,  and  the  defendant  companies  and,  of  course,  they  were 
for  very  large  amounts.   The  cost  of  this  equipment  was  very  great, 
and  when  you  figure  out  what  the  cost  would  have  been  if  it  hadn't 
been  for  the  conspiracy,  the  amounts  were  enormous.  You  multiply 
that  by  three  and  they  were  staggering. 

The  suits  were  filed  like  a  torrent.   First  there  was  just  a 
trickle,  two  or  three  of  them  in  a  few  places. 

[brief  interview  break] 

The  first  of  these  suits  that  were  brought  were  by  publicly 
owned  electrical  companies,  but  the  privately  owned  ones  were 
reluctant  to  bring  the  suits.   One  reason  was  because  they  weren't 
the  victims  they  were  supposed  to  be,  because  they  simply  passed 
on  these  higher  prices  in  the  form  of  rate  increases  so  that  they 
weren't  out  much,  and  they  really  were  quite  in  sympathy  with  the 
electrical  manufacturers. 

But  all  of  them  were  really  compelled  by  circumstances  to  bring 
the  suit,  because  the  privately  owned  utilities  were  in  no  position 
to  be  asking  for  rate  increases  from  their  public  regulatory  com 
missions,  as  they  had  to  do,  without  doing  something  to  recover  some 
part  of  this  money.   So  it  meant  that  practically  everybody  that 
bought  any  of  this  big  equipment  during  this  period  brought  a  law 
suit. 


472 


Olney:   Then  we  had  quite  a  deluge  of  them  because  there  were  so  many  of 

them  bringing  suits  all  at  once.   I  think  there  were  something  like 
nearly  two  thousand  cases  that  involved  about  twenty-five  thousand 
claims  each,  and  that  means  for  each  of  them  a  separate  lawsuit, 
and  they  were  in  thirty-five  different  federal  districts.  Well, 
they  all  grew  out  of  the  same  conspiracy  and  that  meant  that  the 
witnesses  to  prove  the  conspiracy  were  the  same  in  all  of  those 
numerous  cases.   How  could  you  have  nearly  two  thousand  separate 
cases  with  the  same  witnesses?  They'd  be  spending  the  next  hundred 
years  testifying.  Nobody  would  live  that  long.   Also,  the  physical 
exhibits — the  letters  and  correspondence  and  things  of  that  kind 
that  went  into  the  proof  of  the  conspiracy — were  the  same  in  all 
these  cases. 

The  courts  had  never  been  confronted  with  anything  approaching 
this  before  and  they  had  to  improvise  and  I  think  it  was  really 
quite  ingenious.   One  of  the  main  suits  was  in  Philadelphia,  where 
the  criminal  action  had  been,  and  there  was  the  process  of — what 
do  you  call  the  pretrial  process  where  you — 

Stein:   Discovery? 

Olney:   Yes,  discovery;  that  was  involved  in  all  these  cases.   The  judge  in 
Philadelphia,  with  the  backing  of  the  Conference  Committee  on 
Protracted  Litigation,  decided  to  hold  a  consolidated  hearing  on 
these  discovery  matters,  and  all  of  the  litigants  in  all  of  the 
cases  all  around  the  country  were  notified  that  there  was  going 
to  be  this  hearing  at  this  time.   Because  each  case  was  a  separate 
proceeding  and  would  have  to  be  handled  separately,  each  judge  was 
invited  to  set  the  proceedings  for  discovery  in  his  case  or  cases 
for  hearing  in  Philadelphia  at  the  same  time.   In  this  manner  all 
of  the  judges  handling  these  cases  assembled  in  Philadelphia  in  the 
courtroom  at  one  time  to  listen  individually  to  the  testimony  that 
had  to  do  with  discovery,  and  while  they  all  heard  the  same  testi 
mony  at  the  same  time,  each  judge  could  make  his  own  ruling  in  his 
own  case  according  to  his  own  judgment. 

Well,  it  was  the  most  extraordinary  spectacle  I  ever  saw.   The 
judges  took  up  more  room  than  a  jury  panel  would — there  were  some 
thirty-five  of  them!   The  rest  of  the  room  was  just  stuffed  with 
lawyers,  of  course,  from  all  over  the  country.   [laughter]   But 
the  judges  all  heard  the  same  testimony  from  the  same  witnesses. 
When  the  hearing  was  over,  they  gathered  together  and  discussed  it. 

Now,  they  had  to  be,  or  tried  to  be,  technically  proper  and 
exact,  and  that  meant  that  each  judge  had  to  make  up  his  own  mind 
separately.   But  they  found  that  they  were  thinking  alike  on 
practically  every  question  that  came  up.   They  made  their  rulings, 
and  they  were  virtually  identical.   They  were  very  careful  in 


473 


Olney:   making  their  rulings  not  to  get  into  conflicts  requiring  production 
here  when  some  judge  was  requiring  the  same  thing  somewhere  else — 
that  kind  of  thing. 

There  was  more  than  one  such  gathering  of  judges  in  this  litiga 
tion.  I  don't  remember  now  how  many.  It  seems  to  me  there  was  one 
in  Denver  and  I  think  there  was  a  smaller  one  in  San  Francisco . 

But  then  the  number  of  documents  that  were  required  for  the 
discovery  process  was  simply  enormous.   They  ran  into  a  good  many 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  documents.   An  arrangement  was  worked  out 
to  establish  a  center  where  all  these  documents  would  be  located  in 
one  place  and  where  the  counsel  for  any  and  all  of  the  litigants 
could  go  and  see  the  documents  that  pertained  to  his  case. 

This  had  to  be  handled  with  great  care  in  order  to  preserve 
everybody's  rights  and  not  to  do  injustices.  Many  of  these  papers 
were  extremely  private.   Some  of  them  had  nothing  to  do,  or  little 
to  do,  with  the  case,  some  only  with  one  or  two  of  the  cases,  so 
that  it  was  important  to  see  that  counsel  got  the  proper  documents 
but  that  they  didn't  get  anything  more  than  they  were  entitled  to. 

That  experience  with  that  case  led  the  judges  to  appreciate  the 
fact  that  that  procedure  couldn't  be  followed  as  a  regular  thing: 
the  idea  of  assembling  judges  from  all  over  the  country  to  sit 
together  and  hear  the  same  witnesses.   So  they  worked  out  some 
statutory  changes  to  authorize  the  judicial  control  of  litigation 
of  this  type  when  it  exists  in  many  different  districts  at  the  same 
time. 


Stein:   When  you  say  judicial  control,  that  would  be  by  the  Administrative 
Office? 

Olney:   No,  by  the  judges,  making  orders  with  respect  to  discovery  so  that 
the  documents  can  be  located  in  a  single  place,  the  access  can  be 
had  by  all  of  the  judges.   There  are  many  facets  to  it.   I  don't 
recall  it.   I  had  nothing  to  do  with  drafting  the  legislation.   I 
know  that  it  was  enacted  and  has  been  quite  successful.   They  haven't 
had  any  insurmountable  problems  come  up  since  then. 

But  that  was  really  quite  a  notable  event  and  it  was  very  inter 
esting  indeed  to  see  the  ingenuity  that  was  shown  by  these  judges 
in  meeting  the  situation.   It  was  wholly  without  precedent.   They 
just  worked  it  out  by  patience,  common  sense,  and  agreement.   It 
was  one  of  the  few  times  that  I  have  ever  seen  a  collection  of 
judges  that  was  able  to  agree  consistently  on  anything  much.   But 
they  certainly  did  here. 


474 


Stein:   I  was  thinking  of  your  earlier  comment  about  judges  being  so 

ticklish  about  having  anyone  step  into  their  territory  or  tell 
them  what  to  do,  and  the  fact  that  that  number  would  cooperate  is 
quite  remarkable. 

Olney:   Well,  it  was,  and  it  wouldn't  have  happened  except  the  situation 
was  so  bad  that  every  judge  realized  that  something  like  that  had 
to  be  done. 

Stein:   Has  a  case  of  similar  magnitude  happened  since? 

Olney:    I  think  there  have  been  [some];  maybe  I  can  recall  one.   [pages 

through  annual  reports  of  the  Administrative  Office]   I  know  where 
they  expected  to  get  it.   One  of  them  was  in  those  Boeing  727  air 
crashes.   As  you  may  recall,  there  were  two  airplanes  that  collided 
over  Brooklyn  and  fell  down  in  the  middle  of  the  town.   There  were 
a  very  large  number  of  lawsuits  that  grew  out  of  that.   The  plain 
tiffs  could  file  anywhere  that  they  wanted  to.   They  didn't  have  to 
file  in  New  York  where  the  accident  occurred.   That  was  very  wide 
spread. 

Then  there  was  some  Monsanto  patent  litigation  I  see  mentioned 
here  [referring  to  "Report  of  the  Special  Committee  on  Continuing 
Education,  Research,  Training,  and  Administration"].*  I  can't 
remember  what  that  was,  excepting  I  recall  the  judges  talking  about 
it  and  saying  that  it  was  going  to  involve  the  same  kind  of  wide 
spread  litigation  with  identical  witnesses,  but  how  it  was  worked 
out,  I  don't  know.   I  know  that  they  succeeded.   There's  been  no 
breakdown. 

Stein:   I  notice  in  this  report  of  the  special  committee  that  there  is 

reference  to  a  report  written  after  that  electrical  lawsuit  case. 
There  was  a  full  report  on  the  development  and  activities  of  the 
coordinating  committee  of  these  judges.   I  wonder  if  that  report 
exists  and  if  that's  something  a  researcher  could  go  to. 

Olney:   Oh,  yes.   Oh,  certainly.   That  coordinating  committee  is  the  com 
mittee  of  judges  that  handled  these  hearings  that  I  speak  of.   Oh, 
yes,  that's  available. 


*Prepared  for  the  Meeting  of  the  Judicial  Conference  of  the  United 
States,  March  30-31,  1967.   On  deposit  with  the  Warren  Olney  III 
papers  in  The  Bancroft  Library. 


475 


Stein:    Is  there  anything  else  we  need  to  say  about  protracted  cases? 
Olney:   No,  I  think  not. 

Statistical  Matters:   A  Case  Study  of  the  Federal  Probation  System 

Stein:   In  that  case,  let's  go  on  to  the  statistical  work.   I  think  that 

you  mentioned  last  week  that  you  wanted  to  talk  a  little  bit  about 
that.   [tape  off  briefly]   We  just  started  talking  about  the 
importance  of  statistical  studies. 

Olney:   About  everything  that  I  can  say  on  that  subject  is  included  in  a 
proposal  that  I  made  at  Judge  Hurrah's  request.   It's  dated 
January  25,  1971  and  it  was  entitled  "A  Proposal  for  Certain 
Statistical  Studies  to  be  Undertaken  by  the  Federal  Judicial 
Center."*  In  that  paper  I  reviewed  the  history  of  the  statistical 
system  in  the  Administrative  Office  beginning  in  1939  and  how  it 
was  developed  and  what  the  Administrative  Office  does  and  what  the 
shortcomings  were  in  our  ability  to  utilize  statistical  information 
that  was  gathered . 

There  is  also  a  section  in  that  paper  on  the  value  of  statistical 
studies  and  this,  to  me,  is  very  important,  because  it's  not  under 
stood.   People  usually  think  of  statistics  in  terms  of  business 
accounts  or  something  like  that.   These  statistics  that  are  kept 
on  these  court  operations  are  something  quite  different  from  that 
and  are  the  best  and  most  reliable  means  of  finding  out  what's 
really  going  on  in  the  court  system. 

The  paper  also  included  discussion  of  some  of  the  additional 
studies  that  might  be  undertaken  with  respect  to  the  current  court 
problems.   But  that's  all  stated  in  there  ["A  Proposal  for  Certain 
Statistical  Studies  to  be  Undertaken  by  the  Federal  Judicial  Center"] 
and  I  have  really  very  little  to  add  to  it.   It  expresses  my  ideas 
as  best  I  can. 

I  submitted  this  to  Judge  Murrah  because  he  told  me — I  believe 
that  this  was  right  after  he  became  director  of  the  Judicial  Center — 
and  he  told  me  that  he  wanted  to  offer  this,  something  along  this 


In  The  Bancroft  Library. 


476 


Olney:   line,  as  a  program  and  to  give  the  members  of  the  board — you  see, 
the  [Federal  Judicial]  Center  is  governed  by  a  board — a  background 
in  what  the  judicial  statistics  were  and  could  be.   So  that  is  why 
I  wrote  it.   But  what  use  was  ever  made  of  it,  I  don't  know,  if 
any.   I  know  it  was  read  by  the  staff,  but  beyond  that,  I  don't 
know.   Anyway,  it's  my  notion  of  it. 

Stein:   We'll  include  that  as  an  appendix  to  the  interview.   Let's  then 

move  along  to  the  relations  between  the  Administrative  Office  and 
Congress. 

Olney:   Before  we  drop  the  statistical  thing,  there  is  one  matter  I  might 

mention  that  has  to  do  with  our  statistics  on  the  use  of  probation. 
The  records  that  are  kept  in  the  Administrative  Office,  of  course, 
show  in  criminal  cases  what  the  sentence  was  and  whether  or  not 
probation  was  granted,  and  then  it  was  always  of  great  interest  to 
know,  in  the  cases  where  probation  was  granted,  what  happened  to  the 
probationer.   Did  he  end  up  by  having  violated  his  probation?   Did 
he  serve  it  successfully?  After  his  probation  was  terminated  did 
he  commit  any  more  offenses  or  whatnot?  Of  course,  questions  like 
that  bear  directly  on  whether  or  not  probation  is  an  effective  means 
of  correction  and  rehabilitation  in  the  penal  system. 

Our  statistics  indicated  that  probation  was  pretty  effective  in 
proper  cases ,  and  it  was  thought  that  with  an  increase  in  the  number 
of  probation  officers,  so  that  the  case  loads  would  be  smaller,  there 
would  be  better  results.   But  to  find  this  out  you  had  to  keep  track 
of  the  cases. 

Well,  when  we  were  thinking  along  those  lines  and  about  that  far, 
we  suddenly  discovered  that  the  information  that  we  were  getting 
about  people  on  probation  was  wholly  unreliable.   The  reason  for  it 
was  chat  men  are  put  on  probation  in  District  A  where  they  were 
convicted,  but  they  more  often  than  not  will  be  serving  their  proba 
tion  in  District  B  or  C,  which  may  be  on  the  other  side  of  the 
country.  When  that  happens  their  cases  are  transferred.   But  if 
there  was  a  violation  that  is  picked  up  by  the  FBI,  the  violation 
was  reported  not  to  the  court  where  the  man  was  convicted  originally, 
but  to  the  probation  office  where  he  was  under  supervision,  so  that 
if  there  was  a  violation  it  was  never  connected  with  the  original 
case  on  file. 

So,  looking  at  the  results  of  what  was  shown  by  the  files  in  the 
district  where  the  convictions  took  place,  there  were  these  many 
cases  that  had  been  handled  outside  that  weren't  being  reported  on 
at  all.  We  discovered  that  there  had  been  many,  many  probation 
cases  that  we  had  reported  as  successful,  when  the  man  was,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  incarcerated  in  a  state  prison  for  some  new  offense 
that  he  had  committed  and  the  new  conviction  had  not  gotten  into 
our  records. 


477 


Olney:   Naturally,  I  wanted  to  clear  that  up  and  get  our  statistics  so  that 
they  did  reflect  truly  what  was  happening.   The  way  to  do  that,  an 
easy  way  to  do  it,  was  to  have  the  FBI  send  an  extra  carbon  copy 
every  time  they  picked  up  a  violator,  or  had  a  record  of  a  viola 
tion,  to  the  Administrative  Office  in  Washington,  just  a  few  blocks 
away.  We  needed  a  copy  of  that  same  sheet  so  we  had  a  record  of 
the  man  and  the  violation  for  statistical  purposes.   They  didn't 
have  to  make  any  special  report  or  special  record — just  add  another 
copy  and  send  it  to  us  of  what  they  were  sending  out  into  the 
field. 

We  took  it  up  with  the  FBI  and  they  declined  to  provide  it  for 
us,  because  they  said  that  it  would  cost  them  extra  money  and  they 
didn't  want  to  spend  the  money  doing  our  work  for  us.   Well,  it 
would  only  cost  them,  as  I  say,  an  extra  carbon  copy.   This  is  a 
good  illustration  of  how  high-handed  the  Bureau  was  at  that  period. 

But  we  solved  the  problem  by  pointing  out  that  they  could  save 
money  by  simply  sending  a  copy  to  us  and  then  we  would  send  the 
notices  to  the  proper  districts  and  the  proper  probation  officers 
in  the  field.   By  offering  to  do  that,  we  got  agreement  that  they 
would  send  the  arrest  sheets  to  us.   So  from  then  on  we  began  to 
get  reliable  statistics  on  probation. 

But  the  net  effect  of  it  was  to  establish  that  the  federal  proba 
tion  system  was  not  working  nearly  as  well  as  we  had  thought  it  was. 
It  had  very,  very  serious  weaknesses  and  that  resulted  in  further 
experimentation.  We  conducted  a  test  out  here  in  San  Francisco 
where  probationers  were  taken  at  random  so  that  we  had  three  or 
four  different  groups,  and  one  group  was  given  the  maximum  super 
vision  that  anybody  ever  recommended.  We  had  another  group  that 
was  supervised  by  probation  officers  who  were  especially  selected 
because  of  what  was  regarded  as  their  outstanding  abilities.   Then 
we  had  another  group  which  was  supervised  by  the  regular  run-of-the- 
mill  probation  officer.  We  had  another  group  which  had  the  absolute 
minimum  of  supervision.   In  fact,  they  would  have  had  no  supervision 
at  all  if  we'd  dared  run  the  experiment,  but  you  didn't  dare  do 
that.   But  the  supervision  consisted  of  no  more  than  requiring  the 
man  to  check  in  by  telephone  once  a  month.   Of  course,  he  was  per 
fectly  free  to  come  in,  if  he  had  any  problem  of  any  kind,  but  that 
was  it. 

Interestingly  enough,  we  found  that  that  last  group  had  the  best 
record.   The  high-powered  probation  officers  didn't  do  any  better 
than  the  run-of-the-mill  ones.   The  group  with  the  worst  record  was 
the  group  that  was  heavily  supervised.   Apparently  this  business 
of  having  somebody  riding  herd  on  a  man  all  the  time  just  drives 
him  nutty. 


478 


Olney:   That's  the  kind  of  thing  you  can  do  and  learn  with  statistics  if  you 
use  them  rightly  and  study  them  and  then  follow  out  on  what  they 
suggest.   The  figures  themselves  don't  tell  you  anything.   They 
suggest  where  to  go  and  look  and  what  to  do  to  test  things,  and  then 
you  have  to  do  it.   But  you  need  a  man  who  knows  statistics  to  be 
able  to  tell  you  what  they  do  suggest,  and  we  were  always  short, 
and  they  still  are  short,  on  capable  people. 

Stein:   Is  that  true  of  the  Federal  Judicial  Center? 

Olney:    I  really  don't  know.   I  don't  know  enough  about  it  and  haven't  been 
close  enough  to  it.   I  know  they've  got  some  very  good  men  in  there, 
but  I  don't  think  the  Center  has  been  independent  enough.   I  don't 
think  it's  had  its  independence,  and  the  reason  is  because  every 
director  they've  had  has  been  a  judge. 

It's  like  in  any  large  corporation  having  the  research  and  develop 
ment  section  always  headed  by  one  of  the  corporate  directors.   He's 
interested  in  the  machinery  of  the  corporation  and  making  it  function 
as  an  institution,  and  the  judges  are  interested  in  the  courts. 
They're  not  interested  primarily,  just  incidentally,  in  trying  to 
find  out  the  facts  of  the  thing,  so  that  every  time  there's  a  special 
need  for  personnel  or  something  to  be  done,  the  Center  people  are 
called  on  to  fill  in  on  this  and  that,  and  then  there's  always  the 
problem:  the  Administrative  Office  has  to  do  the  mechanical  work  of 
getting  out  the  payroll,  getting  the  information  on  the  court  cases, 
getting  it  onto  the  IBM  cards,  into  the  machines,  getting  the 
material  reduced  into  statistical,  usable  form.   That  takes  many 
man-hours  to  do  and  a  lot  of  work. 

The  Administrative  Office  also  has  to  get  out  payrolls  and 
handle  all  the  supplies  and  things  of  that  kind.   Those  are  pressing 
needs,  too.  Well,  there's  always  a  tendency  for  the  statistical 
work  to  be  shoved  into  the  background  to  take  care  of  these  more 
immediate  interests  that  affect  the  judges  directly.   Then  in  the 
statistical  division  itself  there's  a  tendency  to  be  even  more  con 
cerned  with  that — with  the  supply  business  and  those  things — than 
they  are  with  getting  the  material  out  for  the  Center.   So  I  daresay 
they've  had  a  lot  of  problems,  but  I  hope  with  a  new  director  who  is 
not  a  judge  that  maybe  some  of  this  will  work  itself  out. 


The  Budget  and  Congressional  Relations 

Stein:    Is  there  anything  more  we  should  say  about  statistics  before  we  go 
on  to  Congress? 


479 


Olney:   No,  I  think  not. 

Stein:   I  noticed,  in  reading  one  of  the  reports  of  the  man  who  was  the 
first  director  of  the  Administrative  Office  of  the  Courts — 

Olney:   Henry  Chandler? 

Stein:   Yes,  Henry  Chandler.   He  wrote  a  report  in  one  of  the  books  that 
you  gave  me  in  which  he  talked  about  his  initial  experience  with 
Congress  and  the  dilemma  he  felt  that  it  put  him  in.   He  had  been 
told,  as  you  had,  that  the  proper  procedure  was  to  pad  the  budget 
so  that  Congress  would  have  something  to  whittle  away  and  he  did 
not  like  that  procedure  and  he  tended  to  try  not  to  pad  his  budget. 
It  seemed  to  me  that  that  was  one  of  the  central  difficulties  that 
you  had,  was  it  not? 

Olney:   No,  that  really  wasn't.   Mr.  Chandler  did  not  believe  in  padding 
the  budget  and  neither  did  I.   However,  I  don't  know,  but  in  his 
case,  I  imagine,  since  he  was  the  first  director,  and  he  was  quite 
new,  he  probably  took  a  much  greater  personal  part  in  the  prepara 
tion  of  the  budget  than  I  ever  did.  When  I  came  in  there,  there 
was  a  business  administration  division  which  was  accustomed  to 
preparing  the  budget  every  year.   They  had  experienced  personnel 
in  it  and  they  would  prepare  the  budget  without  any  specific  instruc 
tions  from  me. 

Shortly  after  I  became  director,  my  head  administrative  man  left 
and  John  Airhart,  who  had  been  my  administrative  man  in  the  Depart 
ment  of  Justice,  came  with  me.   John  was  not  a  lawyer.   He  was  an 
administrator  and  a  very  good  one.  He  prepared  our  budget  over  in 
the  Justice  Department,  so  he  took  immediate  charge  of  the  budget 
in  the  Administrative  Office.   This  didn't  mean  that  there  was  much 
change  from  the  amounts  that  Mr.  Chandler  had  presented.   It  was 
about  the  same  kind  of  budget. 

Curiously,  we  were  presenting  our  budget  to  the  very  same  sub 
committee  of  the  House  Appropriations  Committee  that  I  had  been 
concerned  with  in  the  Department  of  Justice,  with  John  Rooney  as 
chairman  and  then  Congressman  [Frank  T.]  Bow  of  Ohio  as  the  senior 
Republican  member.   He  was  chairman  during  a  brief  period  when 
there  was  a  Republican  Congress.   But  these  were  the  very  same 
people  that  we  were  dealing  with.   They  were  very  parsimonious  with 
the  whole  court  system.   The  budget  for  the  whole  judiciary  was  a 
line  budget.   I  think  I  discussed  that  before. 

Stein:   We  didn't  get  that  on  tape.   Perhaps  you  could  just  review  that 
briefly. 


480 


Olney:   There  are  two  kinds  of  budgets:  a  line  budget  and  a  lump-sum  budget. 
In  a  line  budget  one  puts  down — itemizes — what  the  money  is  wanted 
for:  so  much  for  this  purpose,  so  much  for  that,  so  much  for  travel, 
so  much  for  whatnot.   A  lump-sum  budget  is  an  amount  that  is  allo 
cated  to  accomplish  a  particular  purpose,  as  a  rule,  to  cover  a 
whole  operation.   But  it  doesn't  attempt  to  break  it  down  into  the 
details  of  how  the  money  is  to  be  spent. 

One  system  is  as  good  as  the  other.   If  you  have  impartial, 
sensible  people  to  present  it  to,  there's  no  reason  for  not  giving 
them  details  on  how  you  propose  to  use  the  money,  but  the  danger 
(and  it  was  certainly  realized  with  this  subcommittee  that  we  had) 
with  a  line  budget  is  that  the  committee  will  examine  the  budget 
and  then  decide  that  they'll  only  allow  you  so  much  for  this 
project,  and  that  here's  another  project  that  they  favor,  so 
they'll  give  you  twice  what  you  asked  for.   They  end  up  by  making 
the  decisions  of  what  you're  going  to  do  and  try  to  run  the  organ 
ization. 

That's  exactly  what  this  budget  committee  did.   There  were  some 
things  for  which  they  wouldn't  give  us  any  money  at  all  and  we 
thought  we  needed  it.   One  of  them  was  enough  money  to  pay  salaries 
for  competent  statisticians  to  make  full  use  of  our  statistics. 
During  the  entire  time  I  was  there,  there  was  never  one  year  that 
we  didn't  make  that  request  and  plead  with  them.  We  explained  why 
we  needed  it  and  what  we  wanted  it  for  and  all  the  rest.  During 
that  time,  we  never  got  one  nickel  for  an  extra  statistician. 

It  was  due  to  that  that  we  eventually  lost  the  best  statistician 
in  the  country  on  criminal  statistics,  who  was  Ronald  Beattie,  who 
had  given  up  a  very  fine  job  in  California  and  come  to  take  this  on 
because  of  the  possibilities  that  there  were  for  developing  a 
statistical  system  which  would  be  a  real  tool  for  getting  facts  on 
how  the  judicial  system  was  working.   But  he  had  to  do  all  the  work 
himself — even  some  of  the  punch  card  work  he  did  personally — and  you 
can't  keep  that  up  indefinitely. 

With  some  of  the  items  Mr.  Chandler  used  to  have  great  difficulty, 
because  he  would  give  them  an  estimate  of  what  he  felt  was  needed 
for  a  given  purpose  and  they  would  give  him  less  than  he  had  asked 
for.  Well,  his  estimate  would  prove  to  be  correct  and  that  would 
mean  that  they  ran  out  of  money  and  couldn't  operate  effectively. 

That  didn't  happen  with  John  Airhart.   It's  not  correct  to  say 
that  he  padded  the  budget,  but  in  making  up  his  figures  he  knew 
that  he  should  make  an  allowance  for  amounts  that  they  were  going 
to  cut. 


481 


Olney:   The  committee  members,  like  Rooney,  had  no  hesitancy  in  telling 
Judge  Campbell  and  telling  me,  "We're  not  here  to  appropriate; 
we're  here  to  cut.   You've  got  to  give  us  something  to  cut."  John, 
as  an  experienced  bureaucrat,  was  aware  of  that.   But  that  didn't 
mean  that  we  got  everything  that  we  wanted  or  that  we  had  money 
enough  on  which  to  function. 

There  was  a  time  when  for  many  years  the  travel  expenses  of 
federal  employees  and  officers  were  extremely  low.   Prices  had  gone 
way,  way  up  and  the  amounts  allowed  for  travel  expense  just  didn't 
come  anywhere  near  close  to  making  it.   After  a  lot  of  years  of 
that,  they  suddenly  upped  it  higher  than  it  needed  to  be.   With 
the  kind  of  travel  that  our  judges  had  and  others,  the  Judicial 
Conference  was  satisfied  that  they  didn't  need  to  use  the  maximum. 
So  the  Conference  passed  a  resolution  requesting  the  judges  to  stay 
within  a  lesser  figure  than  the  maximum.   (I  don't  remember  what  it 
was,  but  they  gave  the  figure.)  We  thought  that  that  was  a  good 
measure  of  economy.  We  ought  to  be  trying  to  save  money  and  we 
thought  it  would  be  very  acceptable  to  the  Appropriations  Committee. 

But  it  turned  out  quite  the  other  way,  and  instead  of  being 
patted  on  the  back  for  trying  to  save  some  money,  the  subcommittee 
said,  "Well,  if  the  federal  judges  can  get  along  on  that,  why, 
we'll  just  change  the  maximum  for  them."  So  they  cut  it  down  to 
that  figure  and  left  everybody  else  up.   The  prices  did  go  up,  of 
course,  and  our  people  were  getting  squeezed  when  the  rest  of  them 
weren't  and,  of  course,  the  judges  knew  perfectly  well  who  were 
responsible  for  that  [laughter]  and  it  didn't  add  to  my  popularity 
at  all. 

Stein:   Here  you  were  trying  to  save  the  taxpayer  a  dollar! 

Olney:   The  treatment  of  the  Supreme  Court  was  even  worse  than  the  treatment 
of  the  rest  of  the  judiciary.   The  Supreme  Court  has  its  own  budget 
which  they  present  to  the  same  subcommittee.   They  had  a  lot  of 
trouble  with  pigeons  that  were  roosting  on  the  buildings  and  dirty 
ing  the  place  up,  especially  the  capitol.   The  Congress  appropriated 
a  considerable  sum  to  pigeon-proof  the  capitol  and  nothing  to  pigeon- 
proof  the  Supreme  Court  building.   So  all  the  pigeons  came  over  and 
roosted  on  the  Supreme  Court  building.   They  asked  to  be  pigeon- 
proofed  too  and  all  they  got  were  snide  remarks  that  the  Court  was 
for  the  birds  and  things  of  that  kind  and  no  relief.   It  got  to  be 
really  disgraceful,  all  these  mounds  of  pigeon  dung  all  over  the 
place. 

Then  the  Supreme  Court  had  all  these  big  empty  halls  in  the 
building  which  they  thought  could  well  be  utilized  by  putting  in 
display  cases  with  things  of  interest:  briefs  written  in  longhand 


482 


Olney : 


Stein: 
Olney : 


by  Abe  Lincoln  and  some  of  John  Marshall's  memorabilia  and  things 
of  that  kind.   So  they  asked  for  the  small  amount  that  was  necessary 
for  display  cases  which  would  have  benefited  the  public,  but  they 
were  not  given.   They  were  turned  down  every  year.   They  kept  turn 
ing  them  down. 

On  the  matter  of  automobiles,  the  Supreme  Court  justices  had  no 
automobiles  at  all.   But  many  of  the  other  government  agencies  had 
automobiles  and  drivers;  nearly  everybody  did.  Members  of  the 
Congress  had  automobiles  and  drivers  at  government  expense.   But 
the  justices  needed  them  really  more  than  almost  anybody  else. 

I  can  remember  Justice  [Stanley  F.]  Reed,  for  example;  he  used 
to  drive  his  own  car  and  he  was  an  absolute  menace  on  the  highway 
or  anywhere  else.   I  don't  think  he  ever  had  been  a  very  good  driver. 
But  he  was  inclined  to  be  absentminded.   He'd  be  thinking  about  his 
cases  and  things  of  this  kind,  and  it's  just  very  fortunate  that  he 
didn't  kill  himself  or  kill  somebody  else. 

But  there  was  no  consideration  given  to  any  of  the  members  of  the 
Court.   The  chief  justice  [Earl  Warren]  was  finally  awarded  a  car, 
but  that  was  on  a  very  peculiar  freak.   He  hadn't  been  in  Washington 
very  long  and  he  was  invited  to  the  White  House  for  a  formal  White 
House  dinner.  Mrs.  Warren  was  away,  so  he  had  had  his  secretary 
phone  for  a  limousine  from  one  of  these  limousine  services  and  tell 
them  to  have  a  limousine  at  such  and  such  an  hour  for  the  chief 
justice.   He  got  ready  and  went  down  just  in  time  to  make  the  dinner, 
only  to  find  that  the  limousine  they  had  sent  him  had  a  great  big 
airport  sign  on  it.   It  was  an  airport  limousine.   So  there  was 
nothing  to  do  but  to  show  up  at  the  White  House  in  an  airport  limou 
sine. 

This  was  noticed  and  joked  about.   Sal  Andretta,  who  was  the 
administrative  officer  in  the  Department  of  Justice,  always  claimed 
that  he  was  the  one  who  stirred  it  up.   Anyhow,  it  resulted  in  an 
arrangement  for  a  car  and  a  driver  for  the  chief  justice,  but  not 
for  any  of  the  other  justices.   They  needed  it  just  as  much  and  the 
need  would  be  made  apparent  to  the  Budget  Committee  every  time  by 
the  Supreme  Court,  but  they  got  nothing. 

Did  that  situation  change  at  all  during  your  tenure  in  Washington? 


It  did  not  change  at  all.   John  Rooney  was  there  a  long  time, 
didn't  change  until  he  died  and  that  was  after  I  left. 


It 


483 


The  Federal  Judicial  Center 


Stein:  Let's  move  on  to  the  Judicial  Center.  The  papers  that  you  loaned 
me  last  week,  particularly  the  essay  called  "The  Federal  Judicial 
Center,"  tell  the  story  very  well.* 

Olney:   Yes,  I  think  it  does.   I  think  it  explains  what  it's  about,  and 

then  there's  this  report  of  the  special  committee.**  Then,  of 

course,  there  are  the  hearings,  the  congressional  hearings,  that 
were  on  it,  too. 

Stein:   Yes,  that  was  one  thing  I  wanted  to  ask  you  about.   I  noticed  that 
you  testified  at  that  hearing  and  wonder  how  you  felt  about  your 
reception  there,  in  comparison  or  contrast  to  the  budget  subcom 
mittee. 

Olney:   Oh,  I  was  very  well  received  there,  very  sympathetically  treated. 
Sure,  I  had  no  complaints.   Oh,  my  goodness,  I  don't  want  to  leave 
you  with  the  impression  that  I  was  always  badly  treated  by  the 
Congress.   I  certainly  was  not.   I  never  had  any  problems  at  all 
with  the  judiciary  committees  or  with  any  of  the  Senate  committees. 

In  fact,  with  the  Senate  Appropriations  Committee,  the  first 
chairman  was  the  original  senator  from  Arizona,  a  very  eminent  man, 
Senator  Carl  Hayden.   He  was  succeeded  by  Lyndon  Johnson.   Both  of 
those  Senators  told  the  chief  justice  and  they  told  me  that  they 
felt  the  judicial  branch  was  not  getting  a  fair  shake  from  the 
appropriations  committees  of  the  Congress  and  that  we  should  ask 
for  more  money  and  that  we  should  make  our  case  as  strong  as  we 
could  before  the  House  subcommittees  and  before  the  Senate  com 
mittee,  and  then  when  it  went  to  conference  they  would  put  up  a 
fight  for  it. 


"The  Federal  Judicial  Center,"  in  The  Bancroft  Library. 

**Report  of  the  Special  Committee  on  Continuing  Education,  Research, 
Training  and  Administration,  in  the  Warren  Olney  III  papers,  The 
Bancroft  Library. 


484 


Olney:   We  did  that,  followed  that  course.   The  only  trouble  with  it  was 
that  whether  they  put  up  a  fight  or  not,  I  never  knew,  but  they 
never  won  any.   It  always  came  out  of  the  House  unchanged.   But  we 
were  always  treated  with  great  courtesy  and  so  was  the  Supreme  Court. 

Stein:   I  noticed  that  the  board  of  the  Federal  Judicial  Center  was  to  be 

made  up  of  two  circuit  judges  and  three  district  judges,  and  I  won 
dered  if  there  was  any  significance  in  those  numbers . 

Olney:   Yes.   In  the  first  place,  we  didn't  want  to  have  too  large  a  board 
and  besides  there  would  be  ex  of f icio  the  chief  justice  and  the 
director  of  the  Administrative  Office.   So  there  would  be  seven  in 
all.   Most  of  the  problems  with  which  the  Federal  Judicial  Center 
would  be  concerned  would  be  the  problems  of  the  district  courts  and 
we  thought  that  not  only  should  the  district  judges  be  represented, 
but  it  probably  would  be  better  if  there  were  three  of  them  as 
against  two  from  the  courts  of  appeal.   So  that's  the  way  it  was 
done. 

Now,  there  was  a  great  deal  of  discussion  in  the  hearings  as  to 
whether  there  should  be  some  lay  members  on  that  board.   Senator 
[Millard]  Tydings,  who  was  the  chairman  of  the  Senate  Subcommittee  on 
Improvements  in  Judicial  Machinery,  felt  there  should  be  some  lay 
members.   The  reason  was  that  he  didn't  think  that  judges  would  do 
anything  about  judges'  problems  and  the  injection  of  some  outside 
influence  would  be  a  good  thing. 

I  very  strongly  opposed  that,  not  because  I  thought  his  idea  was 
without  merit.   I  think  that  it  did  have  merit.   But  I  was  sure  that 
we  couldn't  possibly  get  that  legislation  passed  if  it  was  going  to 
be  opposed  by  the  federal  judges  in  any  great  number,  and  I  was 
quite  sure  that  it  would  be  opposed  by  most  of  them  if  there  were 
going  to  be  nonjudges  put  on  that  board.   They  wouldn't  want  a  lot 
of  outsiders  trying  to  come  and  tell  them  how  to  solve  their  prob 
lems.   And  I  couldn't  persuade  Senator  Tydings  to  change  his  view. 
But  his  view  wasn't  accepted,  and  it  went  through. 

The  bill  that  was  passed  was  not  the  same  as  the  bill  which  was 
proposed  by  the  Judicial  Conference  committee.  There  were  some 
substantial  changes  made  in  language  and  other  things.  One  of  the 
things  that  I  had  in  there  was — perhaps  I  shouldn't  speak  that  way, 
but  it  was  indeed  my  idea.  In  the  original  bill  there  was  a  provi 
sion  that  the  board  could  accept  grants  from  nongovernmental  sources 
That  was  because  of  the  sad  experience  we  had  with  line  budgets  and 
the  Rooney  committee,  and  I  knew  that  if  the  board  could  accept 
outside  grants  we  could  get  the  money  for  a  lot  of  the  projects  that 
ought  to  have  been  conducted.  The  Ford  Foundation  put  up  a  lot  of 
money  to  the  Brookings  Institute  to  run  at  our  request — we  stirred 
it  up — a  survey  on  the  bankruptcy  system. 


485 


Olney:   Well,  we  hoped  to  have  that  in.   It  was  taken  out  and  perhaps  it 
was  a  good  thing.   As  long  as  we  ended  up  with  a  lump-sum  budget 
it  was  a  good  thing,  because  you  can  get  into  complications  if  you 
start  taking  money  from  foundations  and  things,  certainly  if  you 
get  dependent  on  it  in  any  way. 

Stein:   You  mentioned  Senator  Tydings  and  last  time  you  told  me  something 
about  him,  and  I've  forgotten  now  exactly  what  the  story  was,  but 
it  had  to  do  with  either  him  or  his  father  and  his  relative  unpop 
ularity  in  Congress.   He  was  going  to  carry  the  legislation — was 
that  it? 

Olney:   Senator  Tydings 's  father  had  been  a  Democratic  Senator  from  Maryland 
and  he  had  been  defeated  in  an  election  by  then-Senator  [J.  Glenn] 
Beall,  a  Republican.   Senator  Joseph  McCarthy  of  Wisconsin  had 
injected  himself  into  that  campaign — and  how!   He  campaigned  all 
over  Maryland  for  Beall,  and  one  of  the  things  that  happened  in 
that  campaign  was  the  circulation  of  an  alleged  photograph  of 
Senator  Tydings  and  Earl  Browder,  the  chairman  of  the  Communist 
party,  together.   It  turned  out  that  the  photograph  was  a  fake, 
and  a  very  crude  fake  at  that,  and  there  were  similar  tactics  used 
in  that  election.   There  was  a  lot  of  election  material  circulated 
that  failed  to  disclose  who  the  originators  were.   In  some  cases 
nothing  was  indicated  and  in  other  cases  it  was  false  information. 
There  were  prosecutions  and  convictions  of  some  of  those  people. 

[telephone  interruption] 

These  prosecutions — the  election  and  the  prosecutions — were 
instituted  before  I  got  into  the  Justice  Department,  but  there  was 
still  a  hangover.   There  were  insistent  demands  made  of  me  when  I 
headed  the  criminal  division  to  try  to  carry  the  investigation  and 
prosecution  up  so  that  it  included  Joe  McCarthy.   The  only  trouble 
with  it  was  there  wasn't  any  evidence.   [laughter]   You  couldn't 
prove  it.   They  all  believed  it  and,  in  fact,  I  believed  it  myself, 
but— 

Stein:   You  didn't  have  a  smoking  gun. 

Olney:   No,  we  had  no  smoking  gun,  and  I  was  quite  unpopular  in  Democratic 
circles  because  I  wouldn't  prosecute  McCarthy  on  that  or  on  charges 
that  he  had  misused  funds  that  he'd  raised  supposedly  to  fight  the 
communists  and  he'd  been  using  them  on  the  commodity  market.  Well, 
the  trouble  with  that  was  that  the  people  who'd  given  him  the  money 
said  they  were  delighted  that  he  had  the  money  and  that  if  he  wanted 
to  use  it  on  the  market,  it  was  all  right  with  them.   You  can't  make 
a  prosecution  on  that. 


486 


Olney:   Then  Joe  Tydings  came  along,  the  son,  and  he  ran  against  Beall  and 
defeated  him.   He  came  in  with  Kennedy,  in  that  election  [I960]. 
He  was  put  on  the  subcommittee  of  the  Senate  Judiciary  Committee 
that  was  called  the  Subcommittee  on  Improvements  in  Judicial 
Machinery.   Olin  Johnston  of  South  Carolina  was  chairman,  but  he 
died,  and  that  put  Joe  in  line  and  he  became  chairman  of  that  sub 
committee. 

When  that  happened,  he  got  in  touch  with  Judge  John  Biggs  to 
talk  with  us  about  what  the  problems  of  the  judiciary  were  and  what 
was  needed  in  the  way  of  improved  judicial  machinery.  We  had  a 
lunch  with  him  in  which  we  took  him  at  face  value.  He  seemed  a 
young  Senator  who  wanted  to  be  helpful  to  the  judiciary  in  every 
way.   We  talked  with  him  with  perfect  frankness,  and  I  told  him 
what  our  problems  were  and  what  was  being  done  and  the  ideas  that 
we  had  as  to  what  could  be  done. 

He  took  all  these  and  ran  with  the  ball,  giving  no  credit  to  the 
judiciary,  but  quite  the  contrary,  making  it  look  as  though  these 
things  had  all  originated  with  him  and  that  the  stupid  judges  had 
just  been  sitting  there  twiddling  their  thumbs  on  it. 

Well,  that  was  our  experience  with  him,  and  other  people  had  the 
same  kind  of  experience.   So  there  were  many  people  in  his  own  party 
and  many  people  who  should  have  been  friendly  to  him  who  came  to 
dislike  him  because  he  wouldn't  play  on  the  team.   But  he  was  very 
well  intentioned  on  this,  but  this  is  the  thing  that  made  him  a 
little  unpopular. 

Stein:   Yes,  I'm  remembering  now  what  the  rest  of  the  story  was.   It  had  to 
do  with  the  introduction  of  the  legislation,  that  you  didn't  want 
it  to  appear  as  though  it  had  come  out  of  his  hat  and  that  it  was 
kept  top  secret  until  you  were  ready  to  release  your  own  version. 

Olney:   That's  right.   It  was  because  of  this  experience  that  we  had  with 

him  that  when  it  came  to  the  proposal  of  the  Federal  Judicial  Center, 
we  did  not  disclose  that  to  him  at  all  and  did  our  best  to  keep  that 
from  happening,  so  that  it  did  not  come  as  his  proposal.   He  had 
alienated  enough  other  people  by  that  time  so  that  we  were  not  too 
sure  that  his  sponsorship  would  be  the  right  sponsorship  for  it. 

Stein:   The  kiss  of  death. 

Olney:   Yes.  Well,  that's  what  the  politics  of  this  sort  of  situation  is. 

Stein:   Is  there  anything  more  we  need  to  say  about  the  Judicial  Center? 


487 


Olney:   No,  I  think  not. 

Stein:    If  I  or  you  think  of  additional  questions  or  comments  we  can  always 
write  them  in. 

Olney:   I  guess  this  about  covers  it,  doesn't  it? 
Stein:   I  think  this  about  does  it.   Thank  you. 


Transcribers : 
Final  Typist: 


Gloria  Dolan,  Sarah  Salvante,  Marilyn  Ham,  Michelle 

Stafford 

Marilyn  White 


488 


INTERVIEW  GUIDE  —  Warren  Olney  III 


Interview  1: 
Interview  2: 
Interview  3 : 
Interview  4 : 
Interview  5: 
Interview  6: 
Interview  7 : 
Interview  8: 
Interview  9: 
Interview  10 : 
Interview  11: 
Interview  12: 
Interview  13 : 
Interview  14: 
Interview  15 : 
Interview  16: 


July  28,  1970 
July  30,  1970 
August  5,  1970 
March  2,  1971 
January  24,  1972 
January  27,  1972 
January  31,  1972 
April  27,  1972 
March  25,  1974 
April  8,  1974 
April  17,  1974 
April  23,  1974 
December  6,  1976 
December  7,  1976 
September  12,  1977 
September  20,  1977 


1-36 
36-78 
79-97 
97-146 
147-167 
167-194 
195-241 
242-263 
315-357 
357-393 
393-417 
417-451 
264-300 
300-314 
452-469 
470-487 


APPENDICES 


APPENDIX  A 

Sierra  Club  Bulletin 
December,  1969 


489 


By  Ethel  Olncy  Easton 


In  1889  or  '90  my  father,  Warren  Olncy.  began  meeting 
John  Muir  at  William  Keith's  studio  which  was  located 
above  the  California  Market  in  downtown  San  Francisco. 

Keith  was  a  well-known  landscape  and  portrait  painter 
and  an  active  lover  of  the  outdoors.  He  was  an  intimate 
friend  of  Muir  and  had  accompanied  him  on  outings  in 
the  Sierra  and  elsewhere.  My  father  had  come  to  California 
from  Iowa  in  1868  because  of  the  climate  and  the  moun 
tains,  as  well  as  to  practice  law.  He  had  tramped  and 
camped  over  hundreds  of  miles  in  the  California  back  coun 
try  and  had  known  Keith  for  many  years  but  had  never 
met  Muir.  who  was  not  then  by  any  means  as  widely  known 
to  the  general  public  as  he  later  became. 

Coming  to  San  Francisco  from  Martinez  (not  far  north 
of  Oakland,  where  he  had  a  fruit  ranch)  Muir  would  often 
visit  Keith's  studio.  On  receiving  word  from  Keith,  my 
father  would  walk  over  from  his  office  in  the  nearby  First 
National  Bank  Building.  101  Sansome  Street,  and  the  three 
would  talk  about  the  outdoors. 

The  creation  of  Yosemite  National  Park  in  1890  and  of 
the  Federal  Forest  Reserve  System  in  the  following  year 
must  have  given  impetus  to  these  conversations.  There  was 
increasing  concern  over  the  future  of  "the  Sierras."  as  we 
usually  called  them,  and  over  encroachment  of  "civiliza 
tion  "  and  of  private  interests  on  wild  places. 

After  their  talks  the  three  would  often  go  downstairs  for 
lunch  in  the  California  Market  restaurant,  the  market  then 
extending  from  Pine  to  California  streets  at  the  site  of  the 
new  fifty-three  story  Bank  of  America  Building. 

Others  soon  joined  the  conversations  and  lunches.  I  re 
member  my  father  saying  that  the  meetings  were  growing 
too  large  lor  Keith's  rather  small  and  cluttered  studio  and 
were  being  held  in  my  father's  law  office.  Among  those  in 
cluded  in  the  group  were  probably  Professors  Joseph  Le- 
Conte.  J.  H.  Senger,  William  Dallam  Armes.  Cornelius 
Beach  Bradley,  and  John  C.  Branner  of  the  University  of 
California  and  Stanford  faculties,  and  David  Starr  Jordan. 
President  of  Stanford,  all  then  or  later  friends  of  my  fa 
ther.  At  about  this  time  I  recall  both  Muir  and  Jordan 
coming  to  our  house  on  29th  Street  in  Oakland. 

Muir  certainly  played  a  leading  role  in  the  meetings.  I 
remember  my  father's  speaking  of  this. 

Keith    evidently    provided    a   sympathetic    context    and 


atmosphere.  He  was  a  genial  man  of  great  personal  charm 
and  wide  acquaintance.  He  had  painted  his  favorite  view 
(perhaps  it  was  Muir's  too)  of  Mt.  Tamalpais  from  the 
west.  It  was  a  watercolor  which  my  father  had  purchased 
and  which  is  now  in  my  home.  Keith  had  painted  as  a  gift 
the  portrait  of  my  father  that  is  now  at  Mills  College. 

My  father's  particular  contribution  to  the  conservation 
meetings  was  his  practical,  legal,  business  and  political 
knowledge.  He  had  been  a  Bay  Area  resident  for  nearly 
twenty-five  years.  He  would  soon  consent  to  run  for  mayor 
of  Oakland  but  only  on  condition  he  receive  both  Demo 
cratic  and  Republican  nominations,  which  he  did.  In  addi 
tion  to  law.  business,  and  politics,  he  was  in  touch  with 
administration  and  faculties  at  California.  Stanford,  and 
Mills  and  could  thus  help  create  a  broad  and  practical  base 
for  an  effective  organization. 

All  those  working  for  what  became  the  Sierra  Club  shared 
a  common  love  and  concern  for  California's  natural  beauty. 
My  father  and  Muir  had  a  small  additional  bond  in  that 
they  had  arrived  in  California  the  same  year. 

The  articles  of  incorporation  of  the  Sierra  Club  were 
drawn  up  by  my  father  and  signed  in  his  office  on  June  4. 
1892.  Muir  was  named  president  and  my  father  first  vice- 
president.  Keith  was  a  charter  member,  as  was  my  brother 
Warren  Olney.  Jr. 

Unfortunately  the  Olney  law  office  records  were  almost 
completely  destroyed  in  the  earthquake  and  fire  of  1906, 
including  most  of  those  that  pertained  to  the  Sierra  Club. 
From  such  as  remain  it  is  clear  that  the  new  organization 
faced  immediate  problems. 

On  November  13,  1893.  my  father  was  writing  Muir: 

Bailey  \Cftarlcs  A.  Bailey \  and  Robinson  \Charles  D. 
Robinson]  have  been  in  to  talk  about  the  depredations  in 
Yosemite  Valley.  Robinson  as  usual  is  very  much  excited,  ft 
looks  very  much  as  ij  the  Sierra  Club  would  br  drawn  into 
the  contest  one  way  or  the  other.  That  is  to  say,  inaction  on 
our  part  may  be  taken  as  evidence  that  there  is  no  substan 
tial  foundation  for  the  complaint  made  against  the  Com 
missioners.  If  the  Commissioners  are  a  one-tenth  part  as 
bad  as  their  accusers  say,  the  Club  ought  to  take  action 
against  them.  The  travel  to  the  Yosemite  Valley  is  no 
doubt  closed  for  the  season,  therefore  it  would  be  a  good 
time  to  go  up  there  to  examine  and  report  what  foundation 


490 


there  is  jor  the  statements  that  the  Valley  is  being  barbar 
ously  treated  as  jar  as  its  flora  is  concerned.  Suppose  you 
and  Bailey  and  some  one  else  say  McAllister  [Elliott  Mc 
Allister]  from  the  Club  go.  What  should  be  done  is  to 
make  a  careful  examination  and  make  out  a  statement  as 
l/>  the  result  oj  that  examination.  The  action  of  the  Club 
based  upon  such  an  examination  by  its  President  and  Di 
rectors  would  carry  great  weight  with  the  people. 

Yours  truly, 

Warren  Olncy 

The  letter  refers  to  a  controversy  arising  over  the  man 
agement  of  Vosemite  Valley  by  a  board  of  commissioners 
ap|xjinted  by  the  state  of  California.  The  Valley,  as  distin 
guished  from  the  area  immediately  surrounding,  was  then 
a  state-controlled  enclave  within  Yosemite  National  Park. 

Here  is  a  letter  from  my  father  to  Muir,  referring 
specifically  to  the  region  bordering  Lake  Tahoe  on  the  west. 
My  father  had  a  particular  affection  for  this  region.  In  it 
he  had  had  an  experience  which  constituted  a  basic  com 
mitment  to  conservation  and  the  mountains.  In  1876,  the 
year  I  was  born,  he  was  returning  by  train  from  business  in 
Reno  and  stopped  off  to  see  Lake  Tahoe.  He  took  the 
steamer,  then  the  only  means  of  traveling  around  the  lake, 
and  got  off  at  Tallac.  Making  his  way  alone  up  the  gorge  of 
Glen  Alpine,  he  came  to  a  spot  where  he  could  scale  the 
steep  walls  and  climb  on  toward  the  top  of  Mt.  Tallac. 
l-'rom  the  summit  he  saw  the  whole  vast  panorama  of  the 
Sierras  north  and  south,  and  the  lake  spread  out  around 
him.  From  such  experiences  as  this  came  his  commitment 
to  the  Sierra  Club  and  the  cause  of  conservation. 

"Your  favor  received,"  he  writes  Muir.  ''The  only  trouble 
about  our  forest  reservation  is  the  delimitation  of  it.  I  have 
a  letter  from  Senator  Perkins  saying  that  there  is  no  money 
with  which  to  make  proper  surveys.  When  President  Jor 
dan  was  /;;  Washington  he  did  what  he  could  in  the  way  of 
establishing  boundaries.  He  found  the  Secretary  of  thi 
Interior  and  the  Commissioner  oj  the  Land  Office  in  hearty 
accord  with  our  scheme.  By  the  way,  guess  I  will  send  you 
a  copy  of  his  letter. 

Senator  White  has  interested  himself  very  much  in  the 
matter  and  I  wrote  him  a  letter  the  other  day,  of  which  I 
send  you  a  copy,  so  you  may  understand  what  is  being  done 
in  the  premises.  He  has  acknowledged  the  receipt  of  this 
letter,  but  has  not  said  anything  about  his  views  in  regard 
to  turning  the  care  of  forests  over  to  the  War  Department. 
Think  that  when  the  reservation  is  made  it  will  be  of  the 
whole  country  from  Yosemite  Park  to  the  R.R. 

Last  Saturday  with  one  of  my  daughters  went  to  top  of 
Diablo  and  from  there  over  to  the  Northwest  to  Moses' 
Rock.  The  trip  was  not  less  than  sixteen  miles.  The  girl 
stood  it  better  than  I.  Unless  you  visit  with  me  at  the  ranch 
soon  there  will  not  be  good  cooking  accommodations  as  I 
am  contemplating  making  a  change. 


William  Keith 


What  can  we  do  to  help  fix  the  boundaries  of  the  proposed 
reservation? 

Twelve  days  later,  Muir  was  writing  my  father,  this  time 
apparently  about  the  state  of  California  ceding  control  of 
Vosemite  Valley  to  the  federal  government,  or  so  Hohvay 
R.  Jones  identifies  the  letter  in  his  excellent  book.  John 
Muir  and  the  Sierra  Club,  The  Battle  jor  Yosemite.  My 
copy  of  the  letter  is  typewritten  and  is  labeled  "Rough 
draft/'  It  is  dated  at  Martinez.  January  IS.  1897. 
My  dear  Olney: 

I  think  with  you  that  a  resolution  like  the  one  you  of 
fered  the  other  day  should  be  thoroughly  studied  and  dis 
cussed  before  final  action  is  taken  and  a  close  approxima 
tion  made  to  unanimity,  if  possible.  Still  I  don't  see  that 
one  or  two  objectors  should  have  the  right  to  kill  all  the 
action  oj  the  Club  in  this  or  any  other  matter  rightly  be 
longing  to  it.  Prof.  Davidson's  objection  is  also  held  by 
Prof.  LcContc,  or  was,  but  how  they  can  consistently  sing 
praise  to  the  Federal  government  in  the  management  of  the 
National  parks,  and  at  the  same  time  regard  the  samr 
management  of  Yosemite  as  degrading  to  the  State,  I  can't 
sec.  For  my  part,  I'm  proud  oj  California  and  prouder  oj 


14 


491 


Warren  Olnev.  Sr. 


I'nclc  Sam,  jor  the  I'.S.  is  all  oi  California  and  more.  And 
as  tn  our  Secretary's  objection,  it  seemed  to  me  merely 
political,  and  if  the  Sierra  Club  is  to  be  run  by  politicians, 
tin  sooner  mountaineers  get  out  of  it  the  better.  Fortunate 
ly  the  matter  is  not  oj  first  importance,  but  now  it  has  been 
raised  I  shall  insist  on  getting  it  squarely  before  the  Club.  I 
had  given  up  the  question  as  a  bad  job,  but  so  many  of 
our  members  have  urged  it  lately  I  now  regard  its  discus 
sion  as  a  duty  of  the  Club. 

Ever  yours, 

John  Muir 

Meanwhile  my   father's  personal   friendship  with   Muir 
had  ripened.  The  following  letter  catches  the  spirit  of  their 
relationship. 
,1/v  dear  Muir: 

.  .  .  Please  remember  me  to  Airs.  Muir  and  sav  to  her 
:ce  expect  a  visit  from  her  as  soon  as  the  health  of  your 
'laughter  will  permit.  Wilkinson  and  I  have  about  decided 
to  spend  the  Fourth  of  July  week  at  a  place  called  Fouls 
Springs  in  Colusa  County,  under  Snow  Mountain.  Said  to 
In  good  fishing.  Come  and  go  along.  There  is  an  interesting 
mountain  country  almost  in  sight  from  your  house  that  I 


have  never  heard  you  speak.  I  believe  it  is  Stony  Creek, 
heading  in  Snow  Mountain  that  is  the  hiding  place  of  the 
trout  we  are  to  catch.  Come.'  We  leave  here  on  Saturday 
morning  the  30th.  By  rail  to  Colusa  Junction,  then  by 
narrow  gauge  to  Sites,  then  by  Stage  to  the  Springs. 

Truly  yours, 

Warren  Olney 

Am  under  the  impression  that  these  mountains  oj  th?  Coast 
Range,  St.  Johns,  Snow,  Sanhedrin,  etc.,  arc  never  entirely 
free  from  snow.  How  is  that! 

This  is  not  the  time  to  retrace  the  entire  history  of  the 
Club  during  these  years,  even  were  I  prepared  to  do  so. 

I  should  like  to  add,  however,  that  in  the  unfortunate 
Hetch  Hetchy  controversy  my  father  played  a  leading,  and 
I  believe  a  mistaken,  role  in  dividing  the  Sierra  Club,  a  di 
vision  that  led  to  his  resignation  and  to  temporary  estrange 
ment  from  some  members  of  the  club  he  had  worked  with, 
including  Muir  and  Will  Colby. 

My  father  honestly  believed  that  the  Hetch  Hetchy  proj 
ect — aimed  at  damming  the  Tuolumne  River  in  a  magnifi 
cent  valley  adjacent  to  Yosemite — was  necessary  to  the  Bay 
Area's  water  supply.  As  a  longtime  Bay  Area  resident  he 
had  experienced  the  years  of  water  rationing  which  many 
old-timers  still  remember.  Wells  and  windmills  in  back 
yards  were  common.  As  mayor  of  Oakland  he  had  had  to 
face  "the  water  problem"  and  be  responsible  for  its  solu 
tion.  He  had  battled  the  private  interests  then  controlling 
the  Bay  Area's  meager  water  supply.  He  had  become  con 
vinced  that  a  public  source,  and  in  particular  the  Hetch 
Hetchy  source,  was  the  best  available  solution  to  a  prob 
lem  which  he  had  had  long  personal  and  painful  experience 
with.  He  felt  that  since  Yosemite  Valley  was  assured,  a 
compromise  on  Hetch  Hetchy  "in  the  public  interest"  was 
advisable. 

He  did  not  foresee  tin-  day  when  the  Sierras  would  be 
«•!  crowded,  and  unspoiled  natural  grandeur  in  such  short 
supply,  that  Hetch  Hetchy  Valley  would  loom  in  retrospect 
as  a  bit  of  paradise  lost.  Besides — he  had  once  fallen  while 
fishing  in  Hetch  Hetchy  and  cracked  three  ribs.  Perhaps 
the  painful  experience  marred  his  appreciation  of  the  Val 
ley's  grandeur  and  beauty. 

His  resignation  from  the  Club  after  nearly  twenty  years 
of  pioneering  service  and  close  friendship  became  such  a 
painful  subject  to  him  that  the  Hetch  Hetchy  project  was 
never  afterward  a  permissible  topic  of  conversation  in  our 
household. 

Ethel  Olney  Easton  was  bom  in  San  Francisco,  $rev  up  in  Oak 
land,  and  was  graduated  from  the  University  of  California  in 
1SQ7.  She  accompanied  her  father.  Warren  Olney,  on  niimcroHf 
trips  into  the  Sierra  U'ith  John  .\fnir,  William  Keith,  Will  Colhy, 
and  other  leaders  of  the  club's  early  diiys.  She  now  lives  in 
Santa  Barbara. 


15 


THOMAS  C.  LYNCH                                                           STATE  OF  CALIFORNIA  O.  J.  HAWKI 

ATTORNEY   CENEKAL  DEPUTY  DIREC1 

/£*^\ 

CHARLES  A.  O'BRIEN                                                                         fs^^Kf  ''A  RONALD  H.  BE 

CHIEF  DEPUTY  ATTORNEY  GENERAL                                                                                                               If     r^l\""'^l  CHIEF  OF  BUR« 


APPENDIX   B  BUREAU  OF  CRIMINAL  STATISTICS 

Sfcpartumtt  nf  Susttr? 


MAIL  ADDRESS* 

P.  O.   Box  158: 
33O1    C    STREET  SACRAMENTO 


November  9,  1970 


Mr.  Warren  Olney  III 
1950  San  Antonio  Avenue 
Berkeley,  California  94707 

Dear  Mr.  Olney: 

You  have  asked  me  to  review  the  information  that  has  been  published 
relating  to  the  time  for  the  disposition  of  criminal  cases  during  the  period 
of  1931-32  in  the  superior  courts  of  Alameda,  San  Francisco  and  Los  Angeles 
counties  and  compare  it  with  similar  information  that  is  available  for  these 
counties  in  recent  years.   The  facts  as  to  the  situation  in  1931-32  comes  from 
the  report  I  prepared  analyzing  data  collected  covering  the  disposition  of 
felony  cases  in  superior  courts  of  the  three  counties  mentioned  during  that 
fiscal  year. 

While  the  current  data  that  we  have  in  the  Bureau  of  Criminal  Statis 
tics  on  the  time  taken  to  dispose  of  cases  in  superior  courts,  particularly  for 
the  past  three  complete  calendar  years,  1967,  1968  and  1969,  are  not  quite  in 
the  same  form  as  that  compiled  for  1931-32,  the  time  intervals  presently  are 
shown  as  median  days  while  in  the  earlier  years  the  information  was  compiled  on 
the  average  number  of  days.   Yet,  both  sets  of  data  are  quite  representative 
and  fairly  accurate  in  showing  the  actual  time  intervals  in  the  handling  of  these 
cases  in  both  periods  of  time  and  are  comparable.   Median  intervals  are  generally 
slightly  shorter  than  arithmetic  averages  as  the  median  is  the  exact  middle  while 
averages  are  unduly  influenced  by  cases  with  very  high  intervals. 

In  1931-32,  the  available  time  from  filing  of  the  criminal  charge  to 
final  disposition  in  Alameda  superior  courts  was  34  days.   We  find,  however,  that 
in  the  three  most  recent  years,  the  median  time  to  dispose  of  criminal  defendants 
in  Alameda  County  courts  approximated  60  days;  almost  twice  as  long. 

Both  Los  Angeles  County  and  San  Francisco  County  had  much  higher  inter 
vals  in  1931-32  than  Alameda  County,  the  average  for  Los  Angeles  County  was  57 
days  and  for  San  Francisco  County,  67  days.   The  median  time  for  these  two  countie 
in  the  years  1967-69  approximated  about  67  days  for  Los  Angeles  County  and  85  days 
for  San  Francisco  County. 

As  the  time  intervals  are  computed  from  the  filing  of  the  charge  to 
the  point  of  sentence  or  final  judgment,  in  recent  years,  because  of  the  predomi 
nance  of  pre-sentence  investigations   for  convicted  defendants,  relatively  unknown 


493 
Mr.  Olney  2  November  9,  1970 

to  any  great  extent  40  years  ago,  a  longer  time  interval  might  be  expected  in 
all  counties.   Usually,  a  period  of  two  to  three  weeks  is  allotted  by  the  courts 
to  the  probation  department  for  pre-sentence  investigations  which  would  possibly 
add  anywhere  from  14  to  21  days  in  those  cases  for  which  pre-sentence  investi 
gations  are  made. 

There  are  variations  in  the  time  taken  to  dispose  of  cases  from  filing 
to  the  time  of  disposition.   Defendants  who  plead  guilty  on  arraignment  are,  of 
course,  quickly  disposed  of.   In  1931-32,  the  disposition  time  for  this  type  of 
defendant  was  an  average  of  19  days  in  Alameda  County,  28  in  Los  Angeles  County 
and  35  in  San  Francisco  County.   In  recent  years,  the  median  times  for  these  types  of 
of  dispositions  have  been  about  27  days  for  Alameda  County,  35  days  for  Los  Angeles 
County  and  38  days  for  San  Francisco  County.   In  every  instance,  they  are  somewhat 
higher  than  they  were  years  ago  but  the  difference  probably  being  accounted  for  by 
added  time  for  pre-sentence  investigation. 

It  has  usually  been  found  that  the  time  interval  for  defendants  who 
change  their  plea  from  not  guilty  to  guilty  is  only  slightly  less  than  the  time 
taken  by  those  cases  which  go  to  trial.   This  suggests  that  where  these  pleas  are 
negotiated  the  change  of  plea  occurs  very  close  to  the  end  of  the  period  of  time 
when  the  defendant  would  have  to  appear  for  trial.   In  1931-32,  the  total  time 
intervals  for  disposition  of  this  type  of  case  was  43  days  for  Alameda  County, 
66  days  for  Los  Angeles  County  and  72  days  for  San  Francisco  County. 

For  those  cases  which  actually  go  to  trial,  in  1931-32,  the  average 
time  in  Alameda  County  was  45  days,  Los  Angeles  County  73  days  and  in  San  Francisco 
County  it  was  78  days.   In  recent  years,  the  median  time  for  these  trial  cases  has 
approximated  about  102  days  in  Alameda  County,  107  days  in  Los  Angeles  County  and 
120  days  in  San  Francisco  County. 

From  this  basic  information  it  is  clear  that  in  1931-32  the  processes 
of  criminal  justice  in  the  superior  courts  of  Alameda  County  was  carried  out  much 
more  rapidly  than  has  been  the  case  in  the  last  few  years  for  which  we  have  data 
available.   But  while  Alameda  County,  even  in  the  years  1967-69,  showed  slightly 
less  time  elapsed  than  in  Los  Angeles  and  San  Francisco  counties;  nevertheless, 
the  time  intervals  in  Alameda  County  are,  in  general,  twice  as  long  except  for 
pleas  on  ariagnment  as  in  1931-32.   On  the  other  hand,  the  other  two  counties  which 
had  much  higher  intervals  in  1931-32  than  Alameda  County  showed  increases  in  time 
but  not  to  the  extent  of  doubling  the  intervals  as  occurred  in  Alameda  County. 

» 

One  other  question  we  discussed  was  the  general  topic  of  delay  in 
defendants  getting  to  trial  particularly  jury  trials.   I  think  it  is  interesting 
to  note  that  the  disposition  of  cases  by  jury  trials  has  not  increased  proportion 
ately  with  the  rise  of  the  number  of  defendants  who  have  to  be  disposed  of. 
Actually,  the  number  of  defendants  disposed  of  by  jury  trial  in  the  superior  courts 
of  Alameda  County  for  the  years  1965  through  1969  were  182,  148,  173,  120,  and  173, 
respectively.   Whereas,  in  the  early  1960's,  approximately  10  percent  of  all  defend 
ants  in  the  superior  courts  of  Alameda  County  were  disposed  of  by  jury  trial;  in 
the  last  two  years  it  has  approximated  6  percent. 


494 
Mr.  Olney  3  November  9,  1970 

Los  Angeles  County,  of  course,  has  been  reputed  to  have  the  greatest 
amount  of  congestion  in  their  superior  court.   Jury  trials  in  Los  Angeles,  hove* 
show  very  little  change  so  far  as  to  the  number  of  defendants  actually  tried. 
During  the  last  five  years,  in  Los  Angeles  County,  the  nuabersof  defendants  dis 
posed  of  by  jury  trial  were  1,052,  1,010,  880,  861,  and  937.   Again,  in  the  earl 
1960 *s  about  6  percent  of  all  dispositions  in  Los  Angeles  County  superior  court 
defendants  were  by  jury  trial;  in  the  last  three  years  this  percentage  has  been 
between  3  to  4  percent.   In  San  Francisco  County,  during  the  five-year  period 
1965-69,  jury  trial  defendants  numbered  139,  122,  148,  102,  and  71. 

The  problems  of-  congestion,  therefore,  are  not  to  be  attributed  to  an 
increase  in  the  nuaber  of  defendants  appearing  before  juries.   The  reasons  for 
delay  and  crowded  trial  calendars  are  much  more  apt  to  be  the  result  of  conditia 
and  postponement  practices  and  inflexible  calendars  rather  than  the  volume  of  cm 
to  be  tried. 

Sincerely, 


f > 


Ronald  H.  Beattie 
Chief  of  Bureau 


Sources:  A  System  of  Criminal  Judicial  Statistics  by  R.  H.  Beattie,  University 
of  California  Press  1936;  238  pp  Chapter  XIII  Time  Factor  in  the] 
Disposition  of  Felony  Cases  in  the  California  Superior  Courts. 

California  Bureau  of  Criminal  Statistics  -  Anmul  collection  of  data 
from  superior  courts,  1967,  1968,  1969. 


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APPENDIX 


NEWSMAGAZINE 


CALIFORNIA 


WARREN  OLNEY  III      • 
"Government  §  Politics 


( 


1948 


(Vol.  5  •  No.  10) 


j     , 


EWSMAGAZINE  • 


OVERNMEN 


(See  Cover) 

Olney  Fights  Back 

OPEN  warfare  was  getting  more  open 
this  fortnight  as  Attorney  General 
Fred  Howser  blustered  through  another 
round  of  "misunderstandings"  with  the 
Commission  on  Organized  Crime.  In  the 
public  press  he  vacillated  up  and  down 
the  scale  of  emotions  with  clumsy  aban 
don.  He  made  veiled  hints  that  "sinister 
forces"  were  at  work  in  California  try 
ing  to  undermine  law  enforcement  (his 
most  ironically  accurate  statement  of  the 
fortnight),  groaned  that  the  Crime  Com 
mission  was  pitching  against  him,  hurriedly 
explained  that  he  wanted  to  cooperate 
with  the  Commission,  then  dug  into  his 
law  books  for  some  way  to  upset  the 
workings  of  the  Commission. 

The  Answer?  What  he  came  up  with 
was  the  declaration  that  Warren  Olney. 
counsel  for  the  Commission,  was  illegally 
employed.  Leaning  over  backwards  to 
explain  that  he  was  only  announcing  this 
opinion  to  fulfill  his  duties  as  Attorney 
General,  Howser  explained  that  a  legisla 
tor  had  asked  for  the  decision.  Pushed  in 
a  press  conference  to  name  the  date  that 
the  opinion  was  requested.  Howser 
couldn't  remember.  "You  know  how  it  is, 
trying  to  remember  dates."  explained 
Howser.  One  reporter  asked:  "But,  can't 
you  give  us  an  approximate  time;  you 
know,  was  it  today  or  yesterday?"  How 
ser  flushed  angrily. 

Big  Supports.  After  Howser's  ma 
neuver,  Olney  was  quickly  backed  by  Ad 
miral  William  Standley,  Commission  chair 
man;  Richard  McGee.  State  Director  of 
Corrections;  and  Governor  Warren,  who 
from  his  campaign  train  issued  an  un 
equivocal  statement :  "Mr.  Olney  has 
performed  his  duties  fearlessly  and  in  the 
public  interest.  His  job  is  not  yet  com 
pleted.  It  must  be  completed."  Then,  in 
case  Howser  was  still  not  aware  of  War 
ren's  feelings  on  the  matter,  the  Gover 
nor  added  that  he  would  see  that  Olney 's 
salary  ($625  per  month)  was  paid  "even 
if  I  have  to  pay  it  out  of  my  own  pocket." 

Howser  hurriedly  offered  to  appoint 
Olney  as  a  deputy  attorney  general  and 
keep  him  on  the  job — under  the  Attorney 
General's  administration.  "Under  no  cir 
cumstances."  said  Olney.  Still  on  the  job. 
he  privately  told  the  Commission  mem 
bers.  "I  don't  chase  that  easy." 

Loopholes.  There  was  no  doubt  about 
the  legality  of  the  loophole  Howser  found. 
The  Commission  had  to  use  the  Attorney 
General's  office  rather  than  private  coun 
sel.  But — with  the  Attorney  General's 
office  itself  receiving  the  major  attention 
from  the  Commission — this  made  an  awk 
ward  situation.  Yet.  basically.  Howser's 
move  was  only  a  small  rock  tossed  in 
the  road  that  the  Commission  was  follow 
ing.  The  Governor  pointed  out  that  the 
law  made  it  clear  the  Commission  could 
hire  an  outside  lawyer  "with  the  per 
mission"  of  the  Attornev  General.  That 


POLITICS 


Tom  King 


Olney:  "a  southpaw  when  needed" 

permission,  however,  was  slow  in  coming. 

Curve-Ball  Lefty.  Whether  Fred  How- 
ser  liked  it  or  not.  the  net  result  of  the 
interchange  was  to  advance  the  44-year- 
old  attorney  still  further  as  a  public 
figure.  Warren  Olney  and  the  Commis 
sion  have  fought  to  keep  their  dealing 
with  Howser  aboveboard.  But.  when 
someone  asks  for  it.  Olney — nicknamed 
"Lefty"'  ever  since  he  was  old  enough  to 
play  baseball — can  throw  a  southpaw- 
curve  or  so. 

Past  Doings.  He  has  spent  half  his 
law  career  as  a  prosecutor.  Right  out  of 
UC  law  school  he  spent  two  years  as 
Assistant  District  Attorney  of  Contra 
Costa  County. 

In  1930  he  began  an  association — which 
he  has  enjoyed  "very,  very  much" — 
with  Earl  Warren.  Says  Olney:  "He  never 
puts  any  strings  on  people  who  work  for 
him — just  so  you  do  your  job."  He  helped 
handle  criminal  cases  when  Warren  was 
DA  of  Alameda  County  until  1936. 
When  Warren  became  Attorney  General. 
Olney  returned  to  his  service  again  as 
Chief  Criminal  Deputy,  handling  among 
others  the  well-known  action  which  broke 
the  regime  of  Tony  ( Cornero )  Stralla 
and  his  Southern  California  gambling  ship, 
the  Lux. 

By  Special  Request.  Olney  stayed  in 
the  state  office  from  1939  to  1942.  then 
left  to  serve  with  the  Marines.  He  re 
turned  from  active  duty  a  captain  (after 
serving  as  an  air  combat  intelligence  officer 
in  Samoa,  the  Gilbert  and  Marshall  Is 
lands )  and  went  into  private  law  practice 
in  partnership  with  Scott  Elder.  Last 
year,  because  it  was  Earl  Warren  asking 
him.  he  took  the  Crime  Commission  post. 

Like  his  longtime  mentor.  Olney  picks 
good  men  and  treats  them  as  partners. 
His  office  in  LA  is  headed  by  John  Han 
son,  who  formerly  spent  20  years  as  an 
FBI  agent. 


Olney  never  calls  up  »  newspaper  to 
pop  off  a  loud  statement.  L'ui  when  news 
men  call  him,  he  cooperates  and  doesn't 
duck  a  tough  question  if  he  can  possibly 
give  a  straightforward  answer. 

Olney  sits  quietly  behind  a  desk  and 
talks  in  low  tones,  but  his  statements  have 
a  bite  to  them.  British  ancestry  on  the 
paternal  side  combined  with  some  personal 
shyness  give  him  a  touch  of  reserve  which 
gives  way  easily  and  unexpectedly  to  good- 
natured  laughing.  Scores  of  loyal  friends, 
new  and  long-standing,  find  his  personality 
disarming. 

He  was  born  in  Oakland  and  grew  up 
in  Berkeley,  where  he  was  a  serious  stu 
dent  rather  than  an  athlete  at  school.  Yet 
a  friend,  remarking.  "Lefty  is  one  of 
those  persons  who  never  change,"  re 
members  well  their  teen-age  experiments 
with  smoking  "after  Sunday  School."  Al 
though  Olney  was  the  scion  of  an  old. 
respected  and  moderately  well-to-do 
family,  friends  found  him  anything  but 
snobbish. 

Brother  Knight.  As  a  freshman  at 
Pomona  College  (ot  which  his  mother  is 
a  trustee )  and  then  at  UC  in  Berkeley 
(class  of  '25)  he  was  sociable  and  popular 
but  not  prominent,  a  member  of  Alpha 
Delta  Phi — fraternity  brother  of  the  prob 
able  Governor-to-be.  Goodwin  Knight, 
who  belonged  at  Stanford. 

In  the  Attorney  General's  office  and  in 
the  Marines  he  lopped  that  III  off  his 
name,  and  obviously  hoped  to  be  rid  of 
the  handle  forever.  But  with  three  War 
ren  Olneys  in  direct  line  of  succession, 
all  lawyers,  he  has  had  to  keep  it  for  self- 
identification.  Mail  and  calls  were  always 
coming  to  him  instead  of  his  father's  law 
offices  across  the  street. 

Grandfather  Olney  fought  for  the  North 
in  the  Civil  War.  then  came  to  California 
in  1865  and  practiced  law  in  the  Bay 
Area.  His  son.  Warren  Olney.  Jr..  followed 
the  family  profession,  became  a  senior 
partner  in  the  SF  law  firm  of  McCutchen. 
Olney.  Mannon  and  Greene — one  of  the 
largest  on  the  Coast — and  served  in  the 
State  Supreme  Court  from  1919  to  19:1. 
He  died  in  1939. 

Warren  Olney  III  worked  in  his  father's 
office  at  three  different  times.  But  he  never 
cottoned  to  the  idea  of  being  the  favored 
son  of  a  senior  partner  and  always 
launched  out  on  his  own  after  a  year  or 
two. 

Spike  IV.  His  two  ruling  passions  are 
probably  law  and  his  family.  He  married 
Elizabeth  Bazata  in  1926.  one  year  out  of 
college.  They  have  three  children.  Eliza 
beth,  just  turned  21.  was  graduated  from 
UC  in  three  years  and  is  now  teaching  the 
fifth  grade  at  Concord.  Margaret.  18. 
and  Warren  Olney  IV  (better  known  as 
Spike  I.  ii.  are  still  in  school. 

Above  middle  height.  Olney  keeps  trim 
by  swimming,  tennis  and  mountaineering. 
Last  summer,  during  one  of  the  Com 
mission's  brief  altercations  with  Howser. 
Olney  was  completely  out  of  touch  with 
the  world,  hiking  along  the  high  mountain 
John  Muir  Trail  on  the  annual  trek  of 


12 


FORTNIGHT,   Nov.mb«r  5,   1948 


the  Sierra  Club.  That  club  was  founded  in 
his  grandfather's  office,  and  both  his  grand 
father  and  father  were  charter  members 
of  the  organization,  along  with  John  Muir 
himself. 

The  Future?  It  will  be  characteristic 
of  Olney  to  fight  to  complete  the  job.  If — 
assuming  the  national  election  goes  as 
indicated — a  climax  is  not  reached  before 
Warren  moves  on  to  Washington,  indica 
tions  are  that  he  will  have  the  support  of 
Warren's  probable  successor,  Goodwin 
Knight.  To  date  Knight  has  been  caught 
in  an  awkward  crossfire  on  the  issue. 
Aware  that  the  Commission  is  Earl  War 
ren's  baby,  he  has  tried  to  maintain  a 
policy  of  hands  off  and  still  not  appear  to 
be  playing  footsie  with  Howser.  This  has 
been  difficult  to  do  when  Howser  has  tried 
repeatedly  to  intimate  that  Knight  was 
siding  with  him  as  regards  the  Commission. 
Best  guess  is  that — once  Los  Angeles  at 
torney  Goodwin  Knight  takes  office — he 
will  support  the  Crime  Commission  as 
ardently  as  Earl  Warren. 

But — unless  there  are  legal  tangles — 
there  will  be  a  climax  before  Knight  steps 
in.  Howser  and  associates  have  to  explain 
the  awkward  matter  of  some  wire  record 
ings  which  have  not  yet  been  brought  into 
the  hearing.  And,  secondly,  there  is  the 
smbarrassing  matter  of  some  slot  machines 
which  had  been  mentioned  in  the  Crime 
Commission's  report  but  neglected  by  the 
newspapers.  It  indicated  that — as  Attorney 
General — Howser  should  know  about  the 
324  slot  machines  in  San  Luis  Obispo 
County  (and  6oo-odd  machines  in  San 
Bernardino  County  not  mentioned),  all 
axed  and  recorded  by  the  Federal  Govern 
ment.  Why  hadn't  Howser  closed  them 
down'  When  the  time  came  that  he  was 
:orced  to  close  them  down,  or  explain, 
.here  would  be  a  new  series  of  involve- 
nents.  It  appeared  that  Attorney  General 
rred  Howser  was  caught  in  a  bit  of  a 
:rossfire.  too. 


Acme 


Admiral  Standley:  he  backed  him. 

ORTNIGHT.    Nov.mb.r    5.    1948 


Fred  Howser:  he  slapped  him. 

Let  Me  Do  It 

A  BEAUTIFUL  blue-eyed  blonde  named 
2\  Ruth  LeFever  achieved  the  distinc 
tion  aboard  the  Warren  campaign  train  of 
founding  a  fraternity.  A  special  and  tender 
fraternity,  but  a  fraternity  even  so. 

Mrs.  LeFever,  whom  the  Governor 
called  "Doc,"'  was  loaned  to  the  campaign 
train  by  Merritt  Hospital  of  Oakland  to 
keep  the  Governor,  his  staff  and  family, 
and  the  press  healthy  on  their  31 -day 
junket  through  32  states. 

A  number  of  them,  including  Governor 
Warren  and  Senator  Knowland.  became 
temporarily  indisposed  from  colds,  fa 
tigue,  "flu"  and  sore  throats  which  re 
quired  treatment  consisting  of  injections 
of  vitamin  compound  or  penicillin.  They 
had  that  united,  fraternal  feeling  because 
the  nurse  jabbed  her  needle  exactly  where 
President  Truman  would  like  to  boot  his 
Republican  opponents. 

No  Man  for  the  Middle 

IT  MAY  have  escaped  the  people,  but 
politicians  have  been  watching.  A  few 
weeks  ago  a  batch  of  resignations  from 
the  Democratic  Central  Committee  in 
Sonoma  County  drew  their  attention  to 
one  of  the  oddest  Congressional  races  in 
California:  the  scramble  for  the  seat  of 
Clarence  F.  Lea,  retiring  after  32  years. 

Survivors  of  the  primaries  are  Sterling 
J.  Norgard  (Dem.  and  IPP)  of  Ukiah. 
and  Hubert  B.  Scudder  (Rep.)  of  Sebasto- 
pol.  Yet  Roger  Kent  (Dem.)  drew  a  total 
°f  34.334  votes  in  the  primaries,  more 
than  any  other  candidate. 

The  4Z-year-old  attorney,  who  practices 
in  SF  and  lives  in  Kentfield  (named  for 
his  family;  his  father  was  once  a  Con 
gressman  from  the  same  district)  was 


running  his  first  political  race.  A  Demo 
crat  cross-filed  Republican,  he  topped 
Norgard  by  620  and  Scudder  by  6430 
total  votes,  yet  his  strength  was  divided 
so  that  he  didn't  take  either  nomination. 

Norgard,  34,  a  fanner,  was  even  more 
politically  unknown  until  a  smooth  roll 
ing  group  representing  labor,  Wallace 
sentiment  and  undoubtedly  the  local  Com 
munist  Party*,  picked  him  as  their  man. 

Democratic  regulars  were  generally  on 
the  fence.  In  the  final  showdown  it  was 
more  a  matter  of  Kent's  losing  (by  917 
votes)  than  Norgard's  winning  the  Demo 
cratic  nomination. 

T-H  and  Strategy.  One  factor  was 
the  Tail-Hartley  Act.  Kent,  a  middle-of- 
the-road  liberal,  favored  retaining  certain 
portions.  Norgard  apparently  won  some 
labor  strength  by  a  blanket  attack  on  the 
whole  measure. 

Norgard's  other  advantage  was  strate 
gic.  The  first  district,  a  geographical  jig 
saw,  extends  up  the  coast  from  Marin  to 
the  Oregon  line  and  also  embraces  six 
counties  from  Mendocino  across  to  the 
Sierra  foothills.  In  that  eastward  bloc 
Butte  County  gave  Norgard  a  margin  of 
1,586  Democratic  votes,  enough  to  clinch 
that  nomination. 

John  P.  Caldwell.  president  of  the  Butte 
County  Newspaper  Guild,  led  a  last- 
minute,  whirlwind  campaign  for  Norgard 
in  this  district  where  neither  he  nor  Kent 
was  very  well  known.  Caldwell  said  he 
was  aided  by  a  "committee  composed  of 
farmers,  local  business  men.  CIO.  railroad 
and  AFL  unionists,  the  Grange  and  a  few 
members  of  the  Independent  Progressive 
Party." 

*  The  Dally  People's  World  has  supported  Nor 
gard  In  at  least  three  editorials.  He  has  advo 
cated  In  his  campaign  that  national  defense 
be  handled  by  the  ROTC.  CCC  and  the  14  mil 
lion  trained  veterans,  a  piece  or  advice  Wallace 
recently  gave  Congress.  Neither  fact  proves 
Norgard  personally  a  Communist:  these  and 
similar  coincidences  do  tie  him  close  to  the 
current  Party  line. 

Moulin 


Sterling  J.  Norgard 


13 


499 


APPENDIX  E 


SAN    FRANCISCO   EXAMINER 


MONDAY,  JANUARY  5,  1953 


Ike  Picks  Warren  Olney 
To  Head  War  on  Crime; 
$15,000  a  Year  Pos 


GETS  POST 

Berkeley,   ihown   with 
ippointed   by  Pretiden 


Warren  Olney  III,  of 
hit  wife,  Elizabeth,  wu 
t-eleet  Eisenhower  at  an 


atiiitant  United  State*  attorney  general  yester 
day.  Olney  will  head  the  criminal  dirition,  a 
$15.000  a  year  po«t.  —San  Francisco  Examiner  Photo. 


Two  Others 

Appointed 

NEW  YORK,  Jan.  4.- 
(AP)  —  President  -  E 1  e  c 
Eisenhower  today  name 
three  men  to  serve  in  $15 
000-a-year  jobs  in  the  jui 
tice  department  under  Hei 
bert  Brownell  Jr.,  who  wi 
be  Attorney  General  in  th 
new  administration. 

All  Republicans,  those  Else: 
hower  chose  as  Assistant  Atto 
neys  General  are: 

Warren  Olney  m.  48,  ol 
Berkeley,  Calif.,  to  head  thi 
criminal  division,  one  of  th< 
most  important  positions  ii 
the  department.  Olney  former 
ly  was  chief  counsel  of  Th« 
California  Special  Study  Com 
mission  on  organized  crime. 

Warren  E.  Burger,  45,  o: 
St  Paul,  Minn.,  to  be  chief  o: 
the  claims  division,  whicl 
handles  all  civil  suits  am 
claims  for  and  Against  thi 
government.  Burger  has  be« 
a  practicing  attorney  s  i  n  c  < 
1931. 

J.  Lee  Rankin,  45,  of  Lin 

coin.    Neb.,    who    will    be    ii 

charge  of    the    executive   ad 

;  judications  division,  which  pre 

pares  presidential  proclama 

tions  and  executive  orders  ii 

cases  where  legal  advice  is  r« 

quired.  Rankin  has  been  prac 

I  ticing  law  since  1930. 


500 


'jQhiey  to  Inherit  Many 
Big  Justice  Dept.  Cases 


Senate  O.K.  Needed 

The  nominations  of  all  thre« 
men  will  go  to  the  Senate  for 
confirmation  after  Eisenhower 
takes  office  January  20. 

The  President-elect  announced 
earlier  the  selection  of  William 
P.  Rogers,  Washington  attorney 
and  former  chief  counsel  of  a 
Senate  investigating  committee, 
as  deputy  attorney  general  un 
der  Brownell.  , 

Today's  appointments  wer« 
made  by  the  general  after  con 
ferences  with  BrownelL 

They  came  just  twenty-four 
hours  after  Eisenhower  chose 
Detroit  Banker  Joseph  M.  Dodge 
as  Federal  budget  director. 

Checked  Already 

Eisenhower's  press  secretary, 
James  C.  Hagerty,  said  the  ap 
pointments  of  the  three  justice 
department  men  and  Dodge 
were  checked  in  advance  with 
Republican  senators  from  the 
States  where  the  men  live. 

That  was  in  line  with  the  gen 
eral  understandings  which  Sen- 
ator  Robert  A.  Taf  t,  of  Ohio,  the 
Senate  majority  leader,  said  he 
and  GOP  colleagues  had  reached 
at  a  conference  last  week  with 
Eisenhower. 

Taft  said  there  had  been  com- 
plaints  by  Republicans  in  Con- 
gress  about  a  lack  of  such  con 
sultation. 

Olney  supported  Gov.  Earl 
Warren  of  California  for  the 
GOP  Presidential  nomination. 

Burger  backed  Harold  E. 
Stassen  at  the  convention  until 
the  former  Governor  of  Minne 
sota  released  his  delegates. 

Rankin  was  a  pre-convention 
Eisenhower  supporter  who  led 
a  campaign  for  write-in  votes 
for  the  General  in  Nebraska's 
Presidential  preference  pri 
mary. 

As  head  of  the  Justice  De 
partment's  criminal  division, 
Olney  will  inherit  the  many 
criminal  action  cases  initiated 
during  the  last  few  months  by 


the  Truman  administration's 
outgoing  attorney  general, 
James  P.  McGranery, 

It  will  be  up  to  the  new  ad 
ministration  to  decide  whether 
to  push  those  cases. 

They  include  a  number  of  big 
income  tax  prosecutions  and 
toe  indictment  of  Owen  Latti- 
more,  foreign  affairs  special 
ist,  for  perjury. 

During  the  second  world  war, 
Olney  served  in  the  Pacific  with 
the  Fourth  United  States  Ma 
rine  air  wing,  with  the  rank  of 
captain.  At  present  he  is  a  lieu 
tenant  colonel  in  the  Marina  Re 
serves. 

Six  years  ago  he  was  named 
chief  counsel  of  the  first  crime 
study  commission  in  California. 
He  served  until  1950  and  was 


J.  LEE  RANKIN 

JV«u>   Auiitant  Attorney   General 

reappointed  to  the  same  posi 
tion  in  October,  1951. 

Olney,  a  native  of  Oakland, 
Calif.,  was  assistant  attorney 
general  of  the  State  from  1939 
to  1942,  in  the  days  when  War 
ren,  now  Governor,  was  Attor 
ney  General. 

PROFESSOR  OF  LAW. 

Olney  is  a  professor  of  law 
and  of  criminology  at  the  Uni 
versity  of  California. 

Burger,  who  will  head  the 
claims  division,  is  a  member  of 
a  St.  Paul  law  firm  and  has 
been  a  professor  at  St.  Paul  Col 
lege  of  Law  for  the  last  ten 
years. 


WARREN  E.  BURGER 

EiM*nhow*r  Appoint** 

— Aajoclittd  P.-eM  Wire  photo. 


Rankin,  Eisenhower's  choice 
to  head  the  executive  adjudica 
tions  divisions,  received  his  law 
degree  from  the  University  of 
Nebraska  in  1930  and  has  been 
practicing  in  Lincoln  since  that 
time. 

Olney  will  succeed  Charles  B. 
Murray,  chief  of  the  criminal 
division  in  the  present  adminis 
tration. 

The  claims  division  Burger 
takes  over  is  headed  now  by 
Holmes  Baldridge,  who  last 
year  represented  the  govern- 

ment  in  the  steel  industry  seiz 
ure  case  in  which  the  Supreme 
Court  held  that  President  Tru 
man  had  acted  unconstitution 
ally. 

As  adjudications  division 
chief,  Rankin  will  succeed 
Joseph  Duggan,  who  recently 
resigned. 

The  new  round  of  appoint 
ments  by  Eisenhower  came  as 
he  made  ready  to  confer  this 
week  with  an  old  friend,  Brit 
ish  Prime  Minister  Winston 
Churchill. 

Churchill  is  scheduled  to  ar 
rive  in  New  York  tomorrow,  but 
may  not  see  Eisenhower  until 
Tuesday  or  Wednesday. 


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APPENDIX  G 

TO:   JUDGE  MURRAH 

FROM:  ELDRIDGE 

SUBJECT:   SPEEDY  TRIAL  PROJECT 

Consideration  has  been  given  to  the  operational  aspects 
of  this  project  during  the  two-day  meeting  with  Olney  and  Beattie, 

f 

and  in  subsequent  staff  discussions  and  conversations  between  the 
Director  and  Mr.  Olney.  A  rough  outline  of  operational  procedure  has 
been  formulated  along  the  following  lines: 

•  1.   Select  districts  according  to  agreed  upon  criteria. 

a.   Some  criteria  are  outlined  in  my  earlier  memorandum 

of  the  preliminary  discussion;  e.g.,  volume  of 
,         criminal  caseload,  mix  of  criminal  caseload,  and 

•  . 

current  delay 
•  ••••  b.  Mr. ~.  Olney  suggested  in  his  conversations  with  the 

Director  that  we  select  districts  with  good  procedure. 
.  .          This  raises  some  questions;  we  don't  want  to  choose 
districts  that  are  already  using  the  procedures  to 
be  advanced  by  the  project  or  we  will  prove  nothing. 
More  about  this  later. 

2.   Establish  a  committee  with  general  oversight  responsi 
bilities.   This  committee  would,  inter  alia: 

a.  Participate  in  developing  the  package  of  procedures 
and  techniques  to  be  advanced  by  the  project. 

b.  Participate  in  the  selection  of  target  districts 

c.  Work  with  the  Attorney  General  to  elicit  the  support 
of  the  Department  of  Justice 


JUG 

d.  Work  with  the  United  States  Attorney  to  assure 
the  suppprt  and  cooperation  of  his  office. 

e.  Meet  with  the  chief  judge  of  each  target  court, and 
with  such  .of  his  judges  as  the  chief  may  sleet, 

to  assure  support  and  cooperation  of  the  court  and 
to  determine  what  kinds  of  support  the  project  may 

• 

need  to  offer  each  court  in  the  light  of  its  own 
'•  special  needs. 

f .  Meet  with  the  defense  bar  to  apprise  them  of  the 
plan,  its  objectives  and  methods. 

g.  Meet  with  the  media,  either  as  a  part  of. other  meetings 
or  separately, to .discuss  the  objectives  of  the  project 

t  * 

and  its  methods.. 
[The  meetings  in  e.,  g. ,  and  g.  should  involve  personnel 
of  the  Justice  Department  and  the  highest  ranking  members 
of  the  judiciary  possible.] 

3.   Alert  enforcement  and  supporting  agencies  to  develop  plans 
for  their  participation  and  support. 

.  *• 

'a;  Police  units  must  understand  that  cases  must  not  be 

brought  until  they  are  well  enough  prepared  to  proceed 

"•••.'.  - 

•  '  .   rapidly  to  trial. 

...*.•• 
.  .  b.  Probation  personnel  must  lay  plans  for 'accellerated 

•  "    .  *  •***...*•'  "      .  " 

:       presentence  investigation.   This  could  include  beginning 
investigations  before  conviction  with  the  aim  of  laying 
a  presentence  report  before  the  court  within  five  days 
of  conviction.   This  will  also  mean^  scheduling  the 
beginning  of  cupervision  to  coincide  with  accellerated 
disposition 


509 
APPENDIX  H 


Mills  College 

to  all  to  tohom  these  letters  shall  eomc  Greeting 

he  trustees  of  the  College  bu  the  authoritgoested  in  them  and  on 
the  recommendation  of  thejacultghatie  conferred  upon 

barren  ©Ineg  m 

3croant  of  this  state  and  of  the  nation,  enquirer  into  public  ills  and  builder  of  public  tocal, 
bearir  of  a  name  long  honored  on  this  campus,  the  degree  of 

Boctor  of  latos  honoris  Causa 
toith  all  the  Rights,  grtoilegcs  and  Conors  thereunto  appertaining 

6incn  at  «lilts  College  in  the  3tatc  of  California 
on  the  sixth  dap  of  June,  in  the  gear  of  0ur  torri 
0ne  thousand  Rine  hundred  and  f  iftu-foor. 


prtsidcnt  of  the  College 

ntrr 

^  ^£>&z*s*^^e-~< 

president  of  the  Board  of  trusties 


510 


INDEX  —  Warren  Olney  III 


Adams,  Harold,   170-172 

Airhart,  John,   345-346,  432,  453,  479-480 

Alameda  County 

Anti-Racket  Council,   151-152 

courts,   94-95 

criminal  cases:  Antoine  case,   96-97;  Del  Masso  case,   140-145;  Gosden  case 
(1934-36),   114-139;  Point  Lobos  case,   145-146 

fraud  cases,   107-108,  118-119 

graft  investigations  (1920s),   101-103 

organization  and  administration,   93-97 

staff,   104-107,  197-198 
alien  land  laws,   224,  228-229 
Allen,  Ralph,   283-286 
Alpha  Delta  Phi,   73-74 
Alstrom,  Arthur,   85-87 
Anderson,  Jack,   286 
Anderson,  Malcolm,   394 
Andrews,  T.  Coleman,   394-396 
Annenberg  case,   255-256,  258-260 
Annenberg,  Moses,   258-260,  262-263 
Annenberg,  Walter,   262 
anti-Semitism,   197-198,  242,  249-250 
antitrust  suits,   28-30,  470-472 
Antoine  case,   96-97 
Arnold,  George,   287,  375 

atomic  espionage.   See  the  Joseph  Weinberg  case 
automobile  theft,  federal  jurisdiction  in,   383-386 


Babcock,  Otis,   251 

Bade,  William,   20 

Bailey,  Margeret  A.,   337,  446 

Barnes,  Stanley,   324-325,  386,  388-389 

Barrett,  St.  John,   405-406 

Barrows,  David  Prescott,   9-11 

Bartlett,  Louis,   38 

Bay  Area  (1910-1920) 

businesses,   46-47 

currency,   52 

law  enforcement,  coordination  of,   147-152 

recreation,   12,  42-44,  59-62 

telephone  service,   52 

transportation:   private,   48-51;  public,   4-5,  46-47,  62 
Beall,  J.  Glenn,   485 
Beattie,  Ronald,   453-454,  480 


511 


Becker,  Burton,   281 

Belli,  Melvin,   135-137,  291 

Bennett,  James  V.,  333,  342-343,  348,  383-385 

Bentley,  Elizabeth,   378 

Benton,  William,   379 

Berkeley:   1910-1920,  46-65;  fire  (1923),   73-74;  police  department,   64-70 

Biddle,  Francis,   221,  243 

Biggs,  John  Jr.,  34,  455,  468-469,  486 

Biscailuz,  Eugene,  170,  177,  178,  185 

"Black  Feather  Gang,"  65-70 

Bolger,  Duke,   275,  285,  287-288 

bookmaking,  gambling,   255-263,  268-270,  273-277,  302 

Bourn,  William  B.,   22-24 

Bow,  Frank  T. ,  479 

Bowles,  Chester,   379 

Bowron,  Fletcher,   77,  273 

Boy  Scouts,  59-62 

Boyer,  Rex,  84 

Bramblett,  Ernest  K. ,   334-336,  338-339 

Brazil,  Abe,   220 

Brennan,  William  J.,   364-36C 

Brody,  Sydney,   408,  417 

Brophy,  Russell,   261 

Brown,  Charles  R. ,   3 

Brown,  Edmund  G.  (Pat) ,   299 

Brownell,  Herbert  Jr.,   366,  371,  374-377,  380,  386-387,  397,  411-417,  419, 

423-428  passim,  439-440,  446,  448 
Bruce,  Jay,   41-42 
Burger,  Vera,   390,  453 

Burger,  Warren  E.,   325,  329,  390-391,  441-442,  453,  460 
Burton,  Harold  H. ,   364 
Bush,  Prescott,   420 
Byrnes,  James,   376-377 


Caddel,  Buck,   274-275,  282,  308-309 

Caldwell,  Arthur  B.,  408-411,  428-429 

Calhoun,  George,   75-76 

California 

anti-Democratic  organizations  in,   199-200 

boundary  disputes,  172,  190-192,  194,  253-257 

enemy  aliens,  World  War  II  policy  on,   214-217,  228-229 

Japanese  Americans  in  World  War  II,   195-241 

land  grants ,   90 

World  War  II  defense  measures,   211-213 

California  (state  agencies) 

Attorney  General,   147-152,  242-315 
anti-fascist  campaigns,   242-252 

bookmaking  wire  services  cases,   255-263,  276-277 
closes  gambling  operations,   154-155 


512 


gambling  ship  prosecutions  (1939-1940) ,  159-194 
investigates  Japanese  Americans,   223-232 
relocates  Japanese  Americans,   195-241 
and  organized  crime,   273-276 
reforms,   147-152 
staff,   153-155,  157-158,  195-196 
Corrections,  Department  of,   265 

Crime  Commission  (Special  Crime  Study  Commission  on  Organized  Crime) ,   264-313 
administrative  personnel,   264-266,  303-305 
assessment  of  work  of,   299-300 
and  Attorney  General  Howser,   281-287 
and  other  crime  commissions,   296-300 
federal  subpoena  of  grand  jury,   292-296 
investigative  methods  of,   277-280 
members,   265A,  300-301 
powers  of,   266-268 

recommendations  to  curb  slot  machines,   288 
reports  of,   301-302 
setting  up  of,   264 
Justice  Department,   156-157 
Narcotics,  Bureau  of,   157 

Public  Utilities  Commission  (PUC) ,   276-277 
Supreme  Court 

justices  of,   6-8,  13-14,  24-25,  77-78 
reverses  wire  service  ruling,   253-257 
Campbell,  William  J.,   258-260,  383,  466,  481 
Caress,  Zeke,   168 
Carpenter,  Bud,   211-212 
Caudle,  T.  Lamar,   337,  377,  401-403 
Celler,  Emmanuel,   423-424 
Chamberlain,  Richard,   98,  151,  195-196 
Chambers,  Whittaker,   378 
Chandler,  Henry,   479-480 
Chicago  Crime  Commission,   279-298 
Chotiner,  Murray,   274,  340 
civil  procedure 

in  civil  rights  violations,   413-414 
U.S.  District  Court  rates  of,   30-35 
civil  rights 

desegregation  of  Washington,  D.C.  parks,   408-412 
disenfranchisement,   421-424 
school  integration,  Little  Rock,   426-429 
civil  rights  bill  of  1956-1957,  412-421 
Cohen,  Mickey,  274,  340 
Colby,  Henry,   56,  73 
Colby,  William,   20,  141 

California  District  Attorneys  Association,   111 
California  Peace  Officers  Association,   111 
Coakley,  Frank,   273,  274 
Collier,  Wilson  F. ,   453 


513 


Ceilings,  Rex,   327-328,  333,  335 

Communism,   198-200 

consipiracy,  U.S.  and  California  methods  of  pleading,   382-383 

Connally,  Mike,   164 

Connelly,  Matt,   402-403,  406 

Continental  News  Service,   255-256 

Contra  Costa  County,  district  attorney's  office  (1927-2930),   65-70,  79-90 

Cornero,  Tony,   159-166,  170-171,  181-190,  192-194,  305-314 

corruption,  in  federal  government,   393-407 

courts.   See  California  Supreme  Court,  U.S.  Supreme  Court,  U.S.  courts 

Covey,  Edwin  L.,   454 

Cox  chemical  case,  107-108 

Crime  Commission.   See  California  Crime  Commission 

crime.   See  bookmaking,  bootleggin,  corruption,  gambling,  kidnapping, 

organized  crime 
criminal  procedures,  California 

constitutional  amendments  to,   88-89 

constitutional  reforms  of  (1934) ,  149-150 
criminal  procedures,  U.S. 

in  civil  rights  violations,   413-414 

criminal  discovery,  witnesses,   366-371 
Crouch,  Paul,   355-356 
Currie,  Laughlin,   377 


Damman,  Stephen,   434 

Daniels,  Burdette,   185 

Davidian,  Abraham,   279-281,  291 

Decoto,  Ezra,   99 

DeGalindez  case,   435-438 

De  Lap,  Tony,   85 

DeWitt,  John  L.,   214-215,  217,  235 

Dietz,  Henry,  153 

Dirksen,  Everett,   420 

Douglas,  William  0. ,   347 

Downey,  Morton,   313-314 

Doyle,  Victor,   55 

Dragna,  Jack,   288-289 

Dresser,  William,   159-163 

Drucker,  Louis,   251 

Dullea,  Charles,   273 


Eastland,  James,   391 

Eisenhower,  Dwight  D. ,   318-320,  324,  329,  418-419,  444 

Elder,  Scott,   56,  73,  264 

Ellis,  William,   453 

Eshleman,  Jane,   135 

Eshleman,  John,   15 

Executive  Order  No.  9066,  217,  234-241 


514 


Faubus,  Orville,   427-429 

fascism,  in  America,   196-200,  221-222,  242-252 

federal  courts.   See  U.S.  courts 

Ferenz,  F.K.,   246,  248-250 

Ferguson  (Bessie)  case,   391 

Fitts,  Buron,   170-173,  177,  178,  185,  248 

Flint,  Chester  B.,   105 

Flynn,  "Porky,"  269,  272 

Foote,  Francis  Seely,   256-257 

Foreign  Agents  Registration  Act,   246-252 

Friends  of  Progress,   242-252 


Galloway,  J.D.,   20 

gambling,  prostitution,  and  bribery,   305-310,  312.   See  also  bookmaking 

gambling  ships,  operation  and  history  of,   164-190 

Joanna  Smith,   167-168 

Lux,   193-194 

Mount  Baker  (Showboat) ,   175,  182,  186,  189 

Rex,   170-174,  181-182,  185-186,  188-189,  192,  305 

Texas ,   180,  186,  189 
Casque,  Aubrey,   370 
German-American  bund,   199,  243,  248 
Giannini,  A.H. ,   19-21 
Giesler,  Jerry,   188-189 
Gleason  Jack,   273,  274,  305 
Gorrill,  Kitty,   50 
Gorrill,  William,   50 
Gosden,  Laura,   122,  128,  134-135 
Gosden,  Louis,   115-138 
Gosden,  Vivian  Taylor,   128-134 
Gosden  murder  case,   114-139 
Graham,  Malbone,   247-248 
Grange,  Fred,   305-313 
Great  Western  Power  Co.,   38 
Green,  Jerry,   395 
Green,  Jimmie,   64-65 
Greening,  John  A.,   148 
Greenlease  kidnapping,   434-435 
Greenslade,  John,   220 
Gremillion,  Jack,   423-424 
Griffin,  George,   189 


Hagar,  Gerald,   300-302 

Hagerty,  James,   366 

Halbert,  Sherrill,   229,  251 

Hanson,  John,   255,  266,  275,  293-294,  296,  305,  306 

Hard,  George  C. ,   105,  106,  128-131,  133,  142-144 

Hart,  Brooke,  kidnapping  of,   150-152 


515 


Hartley,  Richard,   433 

Hayden,  Carl,   483 

Heller,  Tony,   274 

Helms,  George  J.,  104-106 

Heney,  Francis  J.,   100-101 

Henningsen,  George,   105 

Herminghaus  vs .  Southern  California/Edison,   35-36 

Hichborn,  Franklin,   100  " 

Higgins,  Preston,   77 

Hitts,  Billy,   356-357 

Hiss,  Alger,   378 

Hoey,  James,   84-85 

Holland,  H.  Brian,   325,  328,  330-332,  441,  443 

Hoover,  Herbert,   28-30 

Hoover,  J.  Edgar,   298,  304,  332-333,  336,  342-343,  348,  351,  353,  354,  366, 

373,  374,  377,  380-381,  415,  430-433,  446 

Howser,  Fred,  184,  193,  265-266,  275,  279,  281-287,  289,  290,  320,  340 
Hoyt,  Ralph,   92 

Hughes,  Charles  Evans,   17-18,  31 
Hulen,  Ruby  M. ,  404 
Huls,  Harold,   276 
Hunter,  Bob,   98 


Imlay,  Carl,  404-405 

Institute  of  Pacific  Relations,   331-332,  361 

Internal  Security  Act  of  1950,   363 


Jackson,  Robert,   39 

Jahnsen,  Oscar  J. ,   105,  109-110,  153,  163-165,  174,  177,  180-181,  185,  189, 

192,  213,  255 
Japanese  Americans 

and  alien  land  laws,   224,  228-229 

California  state  attorney  general  investigation  of,   223-232 

and  Executive  Order  No.  9066,   234-241 

FBI  investigation  of,   222-223 

land-ownership  patterns  of,   227-231 

relocation  of,   195-241 

sabotage  by,  possibility  of,   215-216,  219-220 

sentiment  against  (1920-1941) ,   239-241 
Jeffers,  William,   284 
Jenks  bill  (SB  2377),   366,  371 
Jencks  case,   363-366 
Jester,  Lloyd,   126 
John  Birch  Society,   396 
Johnson,  Albert  W.,   469 
Johnson,  Hiram,   15-17,  101 
Johnson,  Lyndon,   421,  483 
Johnston,  Olin,   486 


516 


Jones,   Ellis   0.,      242-246 
Judge,   Tom,      304 


Kaufman,  Irving,   349 

Keating,  Kenneth,   366,  369-370,  415 

Keeler,  Eloise,   62,  65 

Keeler,  Leonarde,   62-65 

Keene,  Tom,   268-270 

Kefauver  Commission,   296-300 

Kefauver,  Estes,   297,  299-300 

Kelly  Douglas,   271 

Kenny,  Robert,   193,  251 

Keran,  H.C.  ,   59 

Kerrigan,  Frank,   14 

kidnapping,   150-152,  434-435 

Kingman,  Harry,   72,  419,  424 

Kingman,  Ruth,   72 

Klaus,  Samuel,   259-260,  263 

Knowland,  William,   417-418,  421,  424 


Langer,  William,   330-332,  391 
Lattimore,  Owen,   357,  362 
law,  in  California 

criminal  and  civil  libel,   244-245 

criminal  procedures,  1934  reform,   88-89,  149-150 

evidence,  rules  and  use  of,   108-111,  119 

penal  code,  amendment  regarding  bad  checks,  1928,   83-84 

pretrial  hearing  procedures,   85-89 
law  enforcement ,  in  California 

coordination  of,   111,  154-157 

coordination  of,  for  defense,   202 

Lawrence  Radiation  Laboratory,  Manhatten  Project,   351,  354 
LeConte,  J.N. ,   20 
Lee,  H.P.,   64-65 

Lentz,  Walter,   282,  283,  287,  308,  309,  336 
Lesser,  Harry,   102 

Lindsay,  Alan,   301,  303-305,  315-317,  318,  406 
Linforth,  Ivan,   75 
Long,  Earl,   423 
Long,  Percy  V.,   20 
Lopez,  Mary,   66-70 
Los  Agneles,   242-243 

Los  Angeles  Police  Department,   177,  280,  289 
Luce,  Dave,   406 
Lucy  (Autherine)  case,   429 
Lumbard,  J.  Edward,   468-469 


MacArthur,  Douglas,   243-244 


517 


McArthur,  Walter,   20 

McBride,  James,   246 

McCarran,  J. ,   361-363 

McCarran  Committee,   361 

McCarthy  Joseph,   318-319,  361,  378-381,  485 

McCormick  Paul,   185 

McCutcheon,  E.J.,   19-20 

McDonald,  Jerry,   148 

McGee,  Richard,   113,  265 

McGranery,  James  Patrick,   335,  340-341,  358,  361,  378,  393 

McGrath,  Howard,   393 

MacGregor,  Helen,   173 

Macllvain,  John,   394-395 

McKay,  William,   187-188 

McLean,  John  Knox,   2-3,  9,  40-41,  74 

McLean,  Rufus,   295 

McLean,  Sarah  Hawley,   3 

Manson,  Marsden,   19 

Manton,  Martin  T. ,   149 

Mare   Island  ownership   dispute,      90-91 

Maris,  Albert  B. ,   34,  456 

Marshall,  Geroge,   318-319 

Marshall,  Thurgood,   409,  423 

Matusow,  Harvey,   363-364 

Meltzer,  Leonard,   98,  197-198 

Mendocino  trial,   305-310,  312 

Merchant  Ship  Sales  Act  (1948),   440-441 

Meredith,  James  H. ,   357 

Merrill,  Charles,   49-50 

Merritt,  Ralph,   73-74 

Miller,  Harry,   83-84,  197-198 

Mitchell,  Clarence,   423 

Mitchell,  John,   390 

Mitchell,  William  D. ,   28,  31,  33 

Moore,  George  H. ,   399-400 

Moore,  Gertrude,   127-128,  130,  132,  133,  134 

Morgan,  Jerry,   398 

Morton,  Perry  W. ,   325 

Mountain  States  Telphone  Company,   257-258 

Mudd,  Harvey,   284 

Muir,  John,   20 

Murphy,  Walter  F. ,   367-370 

Murran,  Alfred,   462-463,  470,  475-476 

Murray,  Charles,   393-394 


Nationwide  News  Service,   258,  262-263 
Native  Sons  of  the  Golden  West,   239-240 
Nazi  party  in  U.S.   See  German-American  bund 
Neeland,  Louis  J. ,   105 
Nelson,  Steve,   351-352 


518 


Newcomb,  Willis,   399-400,  402-404 
Nixon,  Richard  M. ,   319,  339,  389,  424 
Noble,  Robert,   242-246 

Nootka  Sound  Convention  (1970),   190-191 
Nordbye,  Gunnar  H. ,   404 

O'Brien,  Thomas,   171-172 

Ogden,  Frank,   92 

oil,  offshore  rights,   194 

Olmo  Stables,   268-270,  272 

Olney,  Elizabeth  Bazata  (Mrs.  Warren  Olney  III),   44,  74,  75,  318,  320-322, 

326-327,  425-426,  443,  445,  448-452 
Olney,  Margaret,   325 

Olney,  Mary  McLean  (Mrs.  Warren  Olney,  Jr.),   9,  50-51,  53-55,  443 
Olney,  Mary  Graven  (Mrs.  Warren  Olney,  Sr.),   2,  4-5 
Olney,  Richard,   446-447 
Olney,  Warren  Jr.,   76-77,  80 

and  the  American  Bar  Association,   39 

Associate  Justice,  California  Supreme  Court,   6-8,  13-14,  24-25 

California  Joint   Federal-State  Water  Services   Commissioner,      35-38 

and  the   Institute  of  Pacific     Relations,      331-332 

political   activities,      15-18 

private  practice,      11-13,    18-24,    26-30,    38 

recreation,      40-42 

teaching,    University  of   California  Boalt  Hall,      315-317 

University  of  California  Board  of  Regents    Counsel,      8,    14-15 

U.S.    Supreme   Court  Advisory  Committee  on   Rules   of  Civil  Procedure   for  U.S. 

District   Courts,      30-35 

Olney,  Warren  Sr. ,      1-2,    4-5,    16-17,    19-22,    47-49 
Olney,   Warren   IV,      424,    448-449 
Olson,    Culbert,      112,    158 
O'Mahoney,    Joseph,      366,    370 
Onassis,   Aristotle,      438-440 
Oppenheimer,    Robert,      354-357 
organized  crime,      264-314 
Oxford  Movement,      196 


Pacific   Gas   and  Electric   Company,      38 

Pacific  Telephone  Company,   257,  260,  277 

pacificism,   196 

Parker,  John,   273 

Parsons,  C.T.,   20 

Pearson,    Drew,      285-286,    320,    334,    338-340,    375,    377,    440-441 

Persico   and  the  "Black  Feather  Gang,"      65-70 

Peterson,    Virgil,      297-298 

Phelan,    James   D. ,      20 

Pink,   Louis,      186 


519 


Piper,  Harry,  106 
Prettyman,  E.  Barrett,   470 
Proescher,  Frederick,  128,  131-133 
Prohibition:  enforcement  of,   81,  82-83 
bootlegging,   160-161 


racism,  in  Washington,  B.C.,   408-411 

Radin,  Max,   77-78 

Ragen,  James  M. ,  Sr.,   262 

Rankin,  J.  Lee,   325,  328,  397,  444 

RaUSChning,  Hermann,    247 

Reed,  Stanley  F. ,   482 

Republican  party  platform  (1965) ,  419-420 

Rhone,  Bayard,   171,  172 

Riverside,  California,  153-154 

Roach,  Theodore,  102-103 

Robb,  Roger,   287 

Robinson,  Harold,   296-297,  304,  305 

Rochester,  George,   288-289 

Rock  Creek  Park,  desegregation  of,  410 

Rogers,  William  P.,   287,  320-321,  325,  328,  340,  360,  361-362,  374,  380, 

391-392,  426 
Rolph,  James,   35,  37 

Rooney,  John,  341,  344,  346,  406,  479,  481,  482 
Rosenberg  (Julius  and  Ethel)  case,   347-350 
Rover,  Leo,   360-361 
Ruef,  Abe,  101 

Rummel,  Sammy,  306-310,  313 
Ryan,  Judge  Sylvester,   451,  470 


Samish,  Artie,   268-273,  441-443 

Sanborn,  Lydia,   119-121 

St.  Louis  tax  fraud  cases,   399-406 

San  Francisco  graft  prosecution  (1900-1907) ,  100-101 

San  Francisco  water  system,   18-24 

Sather,  Jane  K. ,   8 

Schenker,  Morris,   405 

Schwinn,  Herman,   248 

Service,  John,   327 

Shafroth,  Will,  453 

Sharp,  Louis  J.,   454 

Shattuck,  Ed,   244-245 

Sherry,  Arthur,   301-303,  315,  317-318 

Sica,  Joe,   289 

Siegel,  Bugsy,   276 

Sierra  Club,   20-21,  41-43 

Silverman,  Nathan  Gregory,   377-378 


520 


Smith  Act  prosecutions,   318-383,  470 

Smith,  Henry  Grady,   397 

Smith,  William  E. ,   463 

Snow,  Edgar,   358 

Snyder,  S.W. ,   293,  295 

Soboloff,  Simon,   325 

Southern  California  Edison,   35-36,  38 

Spaniol,   Joe,  458-459 

Spring  Valley  Water  Company,      18-24 

Standley,  William  Harriosn,   293-294,  309 

Stassen,  Harold,   329 

Stevenson,  Adlai,   318 

Stralla,   Anthony  Comero.      See   Cornero,    Tony 

Sullivan,   Jerry,      172 

Summers,    Hatton,      469 

Superior  Oil  Company,      392 

Supreme  Court,    U.S.      See  U.S. 

Sweigert,   William,      211-212 

Swing,    Joseph  M. ,      333,    427 


Tenney,    Jack,      246 

Termini,    Sam,      292 

Thomas,  Julian,   158 

Thompson,    Chestnut  A.,      397 

Tiffany,  Edward,   119,  125,  127,  131,  132 

Till,  Emmet t,   429 

Tinning,   Archibalds.,      81-84,    121,    130 

Tolan,   John,      233 

Tolin,   Ernest  A.,      287,    293-294,    296 

Tompkins,    Tommy,      364 

Townsend,    Dallas,      325 

transportation,   Bay  Area   (1910-1920),      46-47,   62 

Truman,   Harry  S    ,      194,    296,    317,    362,    374-377,   402,    407-408 

Tupper,   Howard  E.,      105 

Tuttle,   Elbert,      397-398 

Ty dings,   Millard  E. ,      379,    484-486 


U.S.    vs   California,      194 

U.S.    vs   Carillo,      169 

U.S.    Attorneys'    handbook,   proposed  revision  of,      384-386 

U.S.   Bureau  of  Prisons,      383 

U.S.    Congress,    Tolan  Committee  hearings,      232-234 

U.S.   courts 

calendar,   464-466 

case  backlog,   457-464;  Philadelphia  example  of,  458-459;  measures  to 
alleviate,   460-461 

cases,  protracted,   470-475 


521 


district  court,    rules  of   civil  procedure,      30-35 

Federal  Judicial  Center,      460-461,    466,    475-476,    478,    483-486 

Judicial   Conference,      450,    462-464 

judiciary,      466-470 

pretrial  procedures,      366-371,    462-464,    472-474 

rules  of  civil  procedure,    reform  of,      455-456 

See  also  U.S.  Supreme  Court 
U.S.  Federal  Bureau  of  Investigation  (FBI) 

academy  training  in  wiretapping,      109-110 

and  auto  theft,      384-385 

data  on  criminals,      298-304 

and  internal  security   cases,      336,    340-345 

informants,    reliability  of,      364-365 

and  IRS  investigation,      396-397 

and  kidnapping  cases,      430-438 

and  probation  data,      476-477 
U.S.    Geodetic  Survey   (USGS) ,      254 
U.S.    Justice  Department 

Attorney  General's  National   Conference  on  Crime    (1934),      109,    111 

and  civil  rights,      407-430 

clean-up  of,      397-398 

corruption  in,      393-394 

criminal  divisions:   budget,      341-346,    406;   and  civil     rights  cases,      407-430; 
internal  security  work,      341-383;    investigative  office  procedures,      372- 
373;   prosecution  of  election  law  violations,      397-398;   and  Senator 
McCarthy,      378-381;   Smith  Act  prosecutions,      397-398 

FBI,    See  U.S.    Federal  Bureau  of  Investigation 

personnel,   446-448 

and  shipping  cases,      438-441 
U.S.    Senate  Appropriations  Committee,      483 
U.S.    Supreme   Court 

Administrative  office   of   the   courts,      34-35,    452-486 

Advisory  Committee  on  Rules  of  Civil  Procedure   for  the  U.S.    District   Courts 
(1934-1938) ,      30-35 

appointments,      29-30 

budget,      481-482 

"court  packing,"      39-40 

defendants'    rights,    decision  on,      364 

justices  of,      450-451 
U.S.    Treasury  Department,    Internal  Revenue   Service    (IRS) 

corruption  in,      394,    399-406,    432 

investigation  of  (1950),      293-296,    394-397 
University  of  California,   Berkeley,      8,    72-78 

Boalt  Hall  Law  School,   76-78,  315-317 

Board  of  Regents    (1911-1919),      8-11 
University  High  School,    Oakland,      57-58 
Uno,    Edison  Tomimaro,      236-237 


522 


Van  Brunt,  H.R. ,   270,  304 
Van  Meter  brothers,   246 
Van  Nostrand,   John  James,   75 
ver  Mehr,  Rudolph,   71-72 
Vickerson,  Julia,   146 
Vinson,  Fred,   332,  348 
Vollmer,  August,  63-65 
von  Schmidt  Survey,   254-255 

Warren,  Earl 

and  the  Alameda  County  Anti-Racket  Council,   151-152 

Alameda  County  District  Attorney,   77,  80-81,  82-84,  87-88,  92-113,  461; 

appointment  as,   99-100 
and  the  Anti-Alien  Land  Law,   228-229 
California  Attorney  General,   77-78,  111,  152-153 
California  constitutional  reform,   148-152 
gambling  ships,  164,  171,  173,  174,  185,  188,  193-194 
the  oil  tanker  Montebello ,  220 
the  Tolan  Committee,   233-234 
wire-service  bookmaking,   258-261 
California  legislature,  work  in,   273 
evaluation  of  career  of,   112-113 
friendship  with  Warren  Oleny,   392-393,  453 
Governor  of  California 

and  Attorney  General  Fred  Howser,   281,  283 
and  the  Crime  Commission,   264,  300-301 
at  the  Eisenhower  inauguration,   330 
and  Japanese- American  relocation,   238-239,  240-241 
and  the  National  Association  of  Attorneys  General,   157 
in  the  National  Guard,   195 
U.S.  Supreme  Court  Chief  Justice,   33-34 
and  federal  court  rule  reform,   455 

nomination  to  the  Supreme  Court,   386-388;  hearings  on,   391-392 
retirement,   389-390 
Waste,  William  H.,   101-103 
water, 

Advisory  Committee  of  the  Water  Resources  Commission,   35-38 
California  Joint  Federal-State  Water  Services  Commission,   35-38 
lawsuits,  Herminghaus  vs.  Southern  California  Edison,   35-36 
Waterbury,  Frank,   64-70 
Watson,  Tolbert,   128-129 
Webb,  U.S.,   112,  152-153 

Wehr,  Charlie,  106,  115,  133,  136-137,  140,  144-146,  153 
Weinberg,  Joseph  W.,   352-355 
Weinberg  (Joseph)  case,   350-357 
Weinberger  case,   434 
Western  Pacific  Railroad,   11-13 
Westphal,  Theodore,   98 


523 


Wheeler,  Benjamin  Ide,   8 

White,  George,   279-280 

White,  Harry  Dexter,   371-378 

White,  Wilson,   366-370 

White  House  protocol,  443-445 

Wickersham  Commission.   See  U.S.  Attorney  General's  National  Conference  on 

Crime 

Williams,  Cora,   57 
Williams,  Edward  Bennett,   339-340 
Wilson,  Emmet  H. ,  184,  186,  187,  261 
wiretapping,   108-111,  278-280,  302 
Wolfe,  Virgil,   304 
World  War  II 

California  defense  measures,   211-213 

California  policy  on  enemy  aliens,   214,  216-217 

outbreak  of,   200-211 

in  the  Pacific  theater,   217-220 

U.S.  policy  regarding  enemy  aliens,  subversives,  and  foreign  agents,   221- 
223,  242-252 

U.S.  policy  on  relocation  of  Japanese  Americans,  195-241 
Wright,  Sam,   257-258,  291-292 
Wyzanski,  Charles,  465 

Yagley,  Walter,   336,  345 
Yosemite  Valley  (1914-1918)  ,  54-55 
Young,  Clement  Calhoun,   35-37 
Youngdahl,  Luther  W. ,   360 
Yuma,  Arizona,   255-258 


Amelia  R.  Fry 

Graduated  from  the  University  of  Oklahoma,  B.A.  in 
psychology  and  English,  M.A.  in  educational  psychology 
and  English,  University  of  Illinois;  additional  work, 
University  of  Chicago,  California  State  University 
at  Hayward. 

Instructor,  freshman  English  at  University  of  Illinois 
and  at  Hiram  College.   Reporter,  suburban  daily  newspaper, 
1966-67. 

Interviewer,  Regional  Oral  History  Office,  1959 — ; 
conducted  interview  series  on  University  history, 
woman  suffrage,  the  history  of  conservation  and  forestry, 
public  administration  and  politics.   Director,  Earl 
Warren  Era  Oral  History  Project,  documenting  govern 
mental/political  history  of  California  1925-1953; 
director,  Goodwin  Knight-Edmund  G.  Brown  Era  Project. 

Author  of  articles  in  professional  and  popular  journals; 
instructor,  summer  Oral  History  Institute,  University  of 
Vermont,  1975,  1976,  and  oral  history  workshops  for 
Oral  History  Association  and  historical  agencies; 
consultant  to  other  oral  history  projects;  oral  history 
editor,  Journal  of  Library  History,  1969-1974;  secretary, 
the  Oral  History  Association,  1970-1973. 


Miriam  Feingold  Stein 


B.A.,  Swarthmore  College,  1963,  with  major  in  history 

M.A.,  University  of  Wisconsin-Madison,  1966,  in  American 
history;  research  assistant  -  Civil  War  and  Reconstruc 
tion. 

Ph.D.,  University  of  Wisconsin-Madison,  1976,  in  American 
history,  with  minor  field  in  criminology.   Dissertation, 
based  in  part  on  oral  history  material,  entitled  "The 
King-Ramsay-Conner  Case:   Labor,  Radicalism,  and  the 
Law  in  California,  1936-1941." 

Field  services  and  oral  history  for  the  State  Historical 
Society  of  Wisconsin,  1966-1967. 

Instructor:  American  history,  women's  history,  and 
oral  history  at  Bay  Area  colleges,  1970  to  present. 

Leader:  workshops  on  oral  history,  using  oral  history 
as  teaching  tool,  1973  to  present. 

Interviewer-editor  for  Regional  Oral  History  Office, 
1969  to  present,  specializing  in  law  enforcement  and 
corrections,  labor  history,  and  local  political  history. 


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